Security forces clashed with gunmen on Monday in one of Mexico’s most violent states, leaving 10 suspected criminals dead and three police officers injured, authorities said.
The early morning shootout happened during a joint patrol by police and the military in the municipality of Yuriria in Guanajuato, a central industrial region that is also home to warring drug cartels.
The Guanajuato state security department initially reported that eight gunmen had been killed, but later said two more bodies had been found with gunshot wounds.
“With this discovery, it is confirmed that there are 10 members (of a criminal group) neutralized,” it said
Security personnel employed a “legitimate and proportional use of force” during the clash, in which three police officers suffered non-life-threatening injuries, according to a statement.
A dozen firearms were seized along with several stolen vehicles and ballistic vests, it added.
Drug-related violence has seen more than 450,000 people killed in Mexico since the government deployed the army to combat trafficking in 2006, according to official figures.
And gang-related violence has shown no sign of abating since Claudia Sheinbaum took office on October 1, becoming Mexico’s first woman president.
She has ruled out declaring war on the cartels and instead proposed to continue her predecessor’s strategy of using social policy to tackle crime at its roots, while also making better use of intelligence.
Recent bloodshed in Guanajuato
Guanajuato, an industrial and farming hub, has for years had the highest number of homicides of any of Mexico’s 32 states. The Jalisco cartel and the local Santa Rosa de Lima gang have been locked in a years-long turf battle in the state.
Just last month, eight people were killed and two others wounded after gunmen pulled up to a roadside stand in Guanajuato and opened fire on customers and bystanders.
MARIO ARMAS/AFP via Getty Images
On October 4, the bodies of 12 slain police officers — all bearing signs of torture and left with messages by cartels — were found in different areas of Salamanca, a town in Guanajuato. The state prosecutor’s office also said the perpetrators left messages in which a cartel claimed responsibility. Messages are often left on victims’ bodies by cartels seeking to threaten their rivals or punish behavior they claim violates their rules.
The bodies were found less than 24 hours after gunmen attacked a residential center for people suffering from addictions in the same municipality, killing four.
In June, a baby and a toddler were among six members of the same family murdered in Guanajuato. In April, a mayoral candidate was shot dead in the street in Guanajuato just as she began campaigning.
The U.S. State Department urges Americans to reconsider traveling to Guanajuato. “Of particular concern is the high number of murders in the southern region of the state associated with cartel-related violence,” the department says in a travel advisory.
