Ex-Mayor, 3 Relatives Murdered in Veracruz

The former mayor of Ixhuacan de los Reyes, a city in the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz, and three relatives were killed by gunmen, prosecutors said.

Fortunato Ruiz Blazquez, a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, was murdered on Sunday, the Veracruz Attorney General’s Office said.

Ruiz Blazquez’s wife, a son and a nephew also died in the attack, police told Efe.

The gunmen attacked the former mayor’s family business in Ixhuacan de los Reyes, a city located in a mountainous section of Veracruz about 345 kilometers (214 miles) east of Mexico City, the AG’s office said.

Federal security forces went to the city, but no arrests were made in the operation.

The AG’s office did not identify a possible motive for the former mayor’s killing.

A shootout two weeks ago between soldiers and suspected gunmen left four people dead in Ixhuacan de los Reyes.

Over the weekend, one person was killed and nine others were wounded when someone threw a grenade at a group of people during an illegal cockfight in a town in Veracruz.

The incident occurred around 1:00 a.m. Sunday in Cerro Gordo, a community located outside the city of Emiliano Zapata and some 330 kilometers (205 miles) east of Mexico City.

Veracruz has been plagued by a turf war between rival drug cartels that has sent the murder rate skyrocketing this year.

Residents of Veracruz city were stunned on Sept. 20 by the discovery of 35 bodies dumped on a busy thoroughfare.

A week later, 32 bodies were found at three drug-gang “safe houses” in the Veracruz-Boca del Rio metro area.

The recent uptick in violence prompted the federal government to deploy the military in the state in October.

The federal operation involves cleaning up local police departments and strengthening intelligence efforts to bolster security across Veracruz state.

The Gulf, Los Zetas, and the relatively new Jalisco Nueva Generacion cartels, as well as breakaway members of the once-powerful La Familia Michoacana crime syndicate, are fueling the violence in Veracruz, which is Mexico’s third-most populous state and coveted as a key drug-trafficking corridor to the United States, officials said.

Source: EFE