In Mexico Violence and Death do not take a Christmas Holiday

Posted by DD, material from The Guardian, El Diario de Coahuila, and PanAmPost

 Mexico’s plague of drug-gang related violent death showed no sign of let-up on Christmas Day –

 
In the western state of Michoacan six severed human heads were found about 8:30 AM   in Jiquilpan, a municipality near the state of Jalisco – a region that has become a battleground for competing drug gangs in recent years.

Officials in the Attorney General’s Office said that the crime was most likely carried out by organized crime cells operating in the area.  According to José Martín Godoy Castro, the Attorney General of Michoacan, "criminal activity in the Sahuayo-Jiquilpan geographical area is due to the fact that there is no predominance of a delinquent group, but rather a dispute between several who seek territorial control ".

The six men are yet to be identified and their bodies have not been found.   The heads were transferred to the Forensic Medical Service for analysis.

More news on these deaths should be forthcoming shortly as 5 suspects in the murder and decapitations were arrested last night (Dec. 26).  The arrests were made as part of the investigation of the severed heads when "an abundance of Federal Ministerial Police went neighboring municipality of  Sahuayo.  

As they passed through Isabel la Catolica street in the Popular colony, they detected a white Nissan van and a red motorcycle, and when they approached they were attacked by firearms by the occupants of a nearby building.   As reported in El Diario de Coahuila;

"Faced with the refusal of the aggressors to stop the shooting, the officers entered the site and subdied five people, two women and three men.

"Inside the truck were found two knives with blood stains, so they were packed for expert analysis in order to determine their correspondence with the events recorded on Christmas day  in Jiquilpan".  .

Also confiscated from the detainees at the site were  two AK 47 rifles, caliber 7.62; An AR-15 gun, .223 caliber; Three short weapons (two 9 mm caliber and one .38 Special), plus a .22 caliber weapon,  and garments with blood stains.

OTHER CHRISTMAS DAY ATROCITIES

In another two separate incidents, also on Christmas but in other regions, a total of 16 people were killed in gun-related violence presumed to have been motivated by drug-related violence.

Of the 16, seven people were massacred  as they gathered to celebrate Christmas in the municipality of Atoyac de Alvarez, in the southern state of Guerrero. The victims included five men from the same family, as gunmen enter the house where the victims were gearing up to celebrate Christmas.  Three brothers, their father and their uncle were shot dead according, to AP. A married couple who had been invited to lunch with the family were also killed.

Out of the seven that were killed, two were municipal police officers and one a state police officer, according to state security spokesman Roberto Alvarez Heredia. Preliminary investigations suggest that the gunmen were motivated by revenge and had attempted to target only one individual but eventually ended up killing bystanders.

In Chihuahua state, authorities said nine people were killed during Christmas Day violence, according to AFP. Five of those were in Ciudad Juarez, including three women who showed signs of having been tortured.

While much of Mexico’s drug violence goes unreported, official data say more than 170,000 people have been killed and 28,000 reported missing since 2006.

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