The death toll from a shooting attack on a drug rehab center in Mexico rose to 26, authorities confirmed Thursday, making it the deadliest attack in a decade.
Authorities in the city of Irapuato, in the state of Guanajuato, increased the death toll from 24 after two of the seven people injured in the attack died.
Members of the National Guard walk near an unregistered drug rehab center after a shooting in Irapuato, Mexico on Wednesday July 1, 2020.
(AP)
Police in Guanajuato state said Wednesday’s attack occurred in a two-story house on the outskirts of Irapuato. The attackers shot all the men in the rehabilitation center, releasing only the women, they said.
Rosa Alba Santoyo, whose three children died in the attack, said that until a month or two ago, there was a military post across the street from the center, but that for some reason it had withdrawn. The Mexican army and national guard have received a series of tasks to deal with the coronavirus pandemic that these troops may have required.
Guanajuato, a thriving industrial center with foreign automotive plants, has become the most violent state in Mexico due to a bloody territorial battle between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel.
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President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Thursday that “changes must be made to solve the Guanajuato problem, because circumstances require it.”
“The problem was allowed to grow, it grew a lot and we have to see if there was any kind of cooperation, criminal conspiracy between criminals and officials,” said López Obrador.
There have been persistent reports that state authorities who once tolerated the Santa Rosa de Lima gang have turned in recent years to allow the Jalisco cartel to enter the state in hopes of ending systematic business extortion. from the local gang.
Santa Rosa has been more difficult than expected for Jalisco, in part because Jalisco’s rival, the Sinaloa Cartel, is suspected of contributing money and weapons to Santa Rosa.
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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.
Associated Press contributed to this report..
