Mexico: 17 people murdered in the country's most violent state

Seventeen people were murdered on Saturday in Mexico's most violent state, the prosecutor's office said on Sunday, the day the president met families of the missing in another region bloodied by narco-violence. The 17 killings were reported in the state of Guanajuato.

In the colonial town of San Miguel Allende, a popular destination for American retirees, three men were shot dead during the funeral of a family member. Five other people were injured.

Three men and a woman were killed in a home in Irapuato. Furthermore, two men and a woman were shot dead as they left a supermarket in the town of Juventino Rosas.

Open investigations

In addition to the three multiple killings, seven people were killed on Saturday in Celaya, Salvatierra, Valle de Santiago, León and Guanajuato, the capital also known for its annual theater festival.

As usual, the prosecution announced in a press release the opening of investigations, without further details on the possible perpetrators of the crimes.

An industrial state, tourist and cultural destination, Guanajuato is the site of clashes between a local mafia, Santa Rosa de Lima, and the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel, one of the two most powerful in the country.

700 missing since September 9

They are fighting over control of drug trafficking, fuel theft and extortion.

A total of 2,990 people were murdered in Guanajuato between January and December 16, according to official figures, making it yet another year the most violent state in Mexico.

On Sunday, President Claudia Sheinbaum met with families of the missing in the state of Sinaloa (northwest) where a war within the cartel of the same name has left more than 600 dead and 700 missing since September 9.

“It is not a matter of a perspective of life but of death”

“Just as she asked us to vote for her, let her help us now,” said Guadalupe Sarabia, who is searching for her daughter Lizbeth Moreno, 22, who disappeared Nov. 14 in Mazatlan. “Men forced him into a car,” she explained.

Claudia Sheinbaum met the families who challenged her at the end of a public meeting in Mazatlan on the Pacific coast.

The president recalled the objectives of her security policy: “That no young person has to come close to violence, to a criminal act, that they know that it is not a prospect of life but of death.”

US President-elect Donald Trump has assured that he will “immediately” designate Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations after his inauguration on January 20. For her part, the Mexican president recalled that Mexico would not accept interference in security matters: “We collaborate, we coordinate, we work together, but we will never become subordinates.”

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