MEXICO-VIOLENCE Fifteen, including activist, killed in troubled Mexican state

Record ID: 144460

  • Title: MEXICO-VIOLENCE Fifteen, including activist, killed in troubled Mexican state
  • Date: 10th August 2015
  • Summary: IGUALA, GUERRERO, MEXICO (FILE) (REUTERS) JIMENEZ TALKING TO MEMBERS OF FEDERAL POLICE PATROLLING AREA WHERE GRAVES WITH HUMAN REMAINS WERE FOUND JIMENEZ GIVING MEDIA INTERVIEWS VARIOUS OF PEOPLE WALKING AMONG HOLES LOOKING FOR PITS JIMENEZ TALKING TO PEOPLE INVOLVED IN SEARCH OF REMAINS HUMAN REMAINS MORE OF JIMENEZ COORDINATING SEARCH FOR MASS GRAVES
  • Embargoed: 25th August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Mexico
  • Country: Mexico
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA8D58BOODOIVBLWU3S0DX1CTBF
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS GRAPHIC MATERIAL
    PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    At least fifteen people were killed during the weekend in the southwestern state of Guerrero, including an activist who helped lead efforts to find 43 students who disappeared and were presumed murdered last year, according to Mexican officials.
    Ten of the murders took place in the resort city of Acapulco, which is packed with tourists due to summer vacations, local police said.
    This is one of the victims, who was found shot to death, lying face down in the street.
    Legal experts and forensics analysed the crime scene before the man's body was lifted and taken away to the morgue.
    Miguel Angel Jimenez, a leader of a community police organization, was found shot to death inside the taxi he drove on Saturday (August 8) night in the rural outskirts of Acapulco, according to local police.
    Distraught family and friends and family held a wake for Jimenez. Mourners paid their last and prayed over Jimenez's open coffin.
    Jimenez's wife, Silvia Garcia, who did not want to face the camera fearing her safety, said Jimenez was a good man.
    "Justice, he was a fighter. He was a man who wanted to defend the people, he wanted peace, he was a good man. He didn't even know how to use weapons. He was not a killer," said Garcia.
    A friend of the family, Amir Zapata, said Jimenez's direct family had been left unprotected.
    "The only concern we have now is for the family he left behind. He left his children, wife and his children will need support and well that happens to everyone looking for a change in our country," Zapata said.
    Jimenez led a group that searched for approximately 300 people who have disappeared in the state, helping uncover mass graves found around the city of Iguala where 43 Mexican students went missing last year.
    The government has said the students were abducted by police and handed over to drug traffickers who allegedly killed the students and burnt their bodies.
    Guerrero, which has one of the highest murder rates in the nation, saw 1,514 homicides in 2014 and 943 people who have been killed so far this year through June, according to federal statistics.
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