Gunmen broke into an unregistered drug rehab center in central Mexico and opened fire Wednesday, killing 24 people and injuring seven, authorities said. Police in the north-central state of Guanajuato said the attack occurred in the city of Irapuato.
The attackers reportedly shot everyone in the rehabilitation center. State police said that no one was kidnapped. The photos purporting to show the scene suggest that those in the center were lying down when they were sprayed with bullets. Three of the seven wounded were reported in serious condition.
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Guanajuato is the scene of a bloody territorial battle between the Jalisco cartel and a local gang, and the state has become the most violent in Mexico.
No motive was given in the attack, but Gov. Diego Sinhue Rodríguez Vallejo said the drug gangs appeared to have been involved.
“I deeply regret and condemn the events in Irapuato this afternoon,” wrote the governor. “The violence generated by organized crime not only takes the lives of young people, but also takes peace away from families in Guanajuato.”
Mexican drug gangs have killed suspected street-level traffickers of rival gangs that have taken refuge in such facilities in the past. It was one of the deadliest attacks at a rehabilitation center since 19 people died in 2010 in the city of Chihuahua in northern Mexico. Since then there have been more than a dozen attacks on such facilities.
Mexico has long struggled with rehab centers because most are private, underfunded, and often abuse abuses in recovery. The government spends relatively little money on rehabilitation, often making unregistered centers the only option available to poor families.
Additionally, addicts and traffickers facing attacks from rivals on the streets sometimes take refuge in rehab clinics, making the clinics the target of attacks. Other gangs have been accused of forcibly recruiting recovering addicts in the centers as traffickers and of killing them if they refused.
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