The Mexican state of Michoacanone of the hardest hit by drug trafficking, was the scene of two bloody episodes that left this Thursday six fatalities: five alleged members of a drug cartel and a municipal mayor.
The governor of Michoacán, Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla, announced during the afternoon that the mayor of Aguililla, Cesar Valencia Knighthad been the victim of a armed attack while inside his truck and that he had died at the scene.
“We strongly condemn the murder of the mayor of Aguililla, César Arturo Valencia Caballero. I have issued instructions to thoroughly investigate the events, to clarify them as soon as possible, and to punish those responsible,” he wrote on his official Twitter account.
The official, who had assumed his post six months ago, suffered at least two gunshot wounds to the chest and neckas detailed by military personnel to the AFP news agency.
That same afternoon, the Secretary of Public Security reported that in the town of Nuevo Parangaricutiro they had been located five people dead, who are presumed to belong to a drug gang. In the place it arrested 32 suspects armed.
The clashes began after a criminal group will take over the facilities of the municipal presidency. Personnel from the Army, the National Guard and state police were sent to the town, inhabited mainly by indigenous people of the Purépecha ethnic group, to retake control of the municipal offices.
In a video that began to circulate on social networks, you can see what appears to be a armored truck with a machine gun firing from a turret.
In the operation, 32 people were apprehended, from whom they seized 37 long weapons, five short weapons, a machine gun and 15 explosive devicesas indicated by the State Prosecutor’s Office in an official statement.
Only in 2021, they were registered in Michoacán 2,732 murders, which is equivalent to a little more than eight percent of the 33,315 that were committed that year throughout Mexico. Meanwhile, there were 234 homicides in January 2022 alone in that state.
Mexico: seven journalists killed so far in 2022
A journalist, identified as Juan Carlos Muñiz, was murdered on Friday, March 3, in Mexico, in the state of Zacatecas, just over a week after the last lethal attack against the press. He was the seventh so far this year.
With the reporter’s crime, 2022 is already the deadliest for the press in the recent history of the Central American country.
David Monreal, governor of the state, confirmed on his official Twitter account that the victim was a worker from the Witness Mining news portal, and that the event took place on the afternoon of Thursday, March 2, in the city of Fresnillo. “We express our solidarity with his family, friends and colleagues,” he wrote.
He covered police information in one of the most violent states in Mexico at the moment and to supplement his income he also worked as a taxi driver, one of his colleagues, also a journalist Alfredo Valadez, explained to the AP.
Attacks on journalists are not new in Mexico, but the rate of murders this year has increased alarmingly, the AP agency reported.
With information from agencies
DB