MEXICO: At least fourteen people are killed in a bloody night of rampant drug violence across Mexico

Record ID: 303556

  • Title: MEXICO: At least fourteen people are killed in a bloody night of rampant drug violence across Mexico
  • Date: 13th February 2011
  • Summary: DEAD MAN LYING ON GROUND
  • Embargoed: 28th February 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Mexico, Mexico
  • Country: Mexico
  • Topics: Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVAE1T0X7NPYL46JSWJO9RYFKR6T
  • Story Text: Fourteen people were killed and scores injured in a night of violent attacks across Mexico as the country's spiraling drug violence continues to escalate.
    In Mexico's second city, Guadalajara, gunmen stormed a busy nightclub in the early hours of Saturday (February 12) and opened fire before hurling a grenade at the crowd of revelers. The attack left six people dead and some 37 injured.
    "Up until this moment, we have 6 dead people, three women and three men, as well as an average of 37 injured people, some of whom are already at their homes," said Tomas Coronado Olmos, the Attorney General for Jalisco state.
    No arrests have been made so far.
    Cartel hitmen are murdering rivals and terrifying residents across Guadalajara as it prepares to host the Pan American Games in a deepening of the country's drugs war.
    Guadalajara is the capital of the western state of Jalisco, home to Mexico's mariachi music and tequila, and was for long spared the beheadings and drive-by shootings tainting other areas of the country.
    But drug killings in Jalisco more than doubled last year to almost 600, with about half of them in Guadalajara.
    In the northern city of Ciudad Juarez, which is also Mexico's most dangerous city, police opened fire on a car carrying four men that refused to stop on Friday night (February 12). One of the men was killed while the other three were arrested.
    Ciudad Juarez has become one of the world's most violent places with some 6,000 people killed over the past 2-1/2 years as rival drug cartels fight over lucrative smuggling routes into the United States.
    In Mexico's richest city Monterrey, seven people were killed in a confrontation between police and suspected drug gang members in the early hours of Saturday (February 12). The aftermath left a pile-up of crashed cars at a major intersection in a busy area of Monterrey. Television images showed some cars riddled with bullets.
    Mexico's drug war has killed more than 34,000 people, mainly cartel members and police officers, since President Felipe Calderon took power and launched an army crackdown on traffickers in late 2006. The rampant violence worries Washington and foreign investors.
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