A gang of men opened fire in a bar in the violence-plagued state of Guanajuato in Mexico. Nine people were killed, four of them women.
The incident was the third time in the last three months that violent gangs have killed patrons in a bar in the area. Authorities say that attacks stem from ongoing territorial disputes between a local gang and the Jalisco drug cartel. In all the attacks, the shooters targeted customers and staff in the bars.
The Wednesday night attack occurred in Apace el Alto and the attackers took credit for the massacre. The left posters on the bar floor covered in blood, signed by a gang called the Santa Rosa de Lima.
The gang’s leader, the “Marro,” means sledgehammer in English. The posters indicated that the bar owner was allied with the Jalisco cartel.
Gruesome photos from the scene showed several bodies of the bar’s servers slumped over in pools of blood.
Apaseo el Alto officials said that the shooters wounded two more women during the attack. They were hospitalized and are reportedly in stable condition.
On October 15, 12 bar patrons were murdered in the city of Irapuato, which is also located in the state of Guanajuato. Several shooters burst into a local bar and opened fire, killing six men and six women in cold blood.
On September 21, unidentified shooters entered a bar in the city of Tarimoro, also in Guanajuato, opened fire, and murdered ten men. Nine people died on the spot and another died at the hospital.
A security analyst in the crime-ridden area said that the gangs target specific bars in the state, whose owners they believe are cooperating with a rival gang. The owners might have refused to pay the attacking gang the demanded protection money, or they could be in business with rival gangs.
Drug dealers, cartel members, or even lookouts who were enjoying a drink in the bar might be the targets of the attacks, but the attackers also kill innocent bystanders and escalate the murders into massacres.
Guanajuato has become the most violent state in Mexico, having recorded the most murders out of all the Mexican states this year. The Mexican federal security ministry announced that Guanajuato had recorded 2,115 murders in the eight months between January and August 2022.
It has become increasingly clear that the war in Guanajuato is a battle for control between two powerful drug cartels. The Sinaloa cartel appears to back the Santa Rosa de Lima gang in its fight against the Jalisco cartel.
Mexico’s president, Manuel Obrador, vowed to reduce gang violence in the country when he took office in 2018, but it appears that his government is struggling to control the cartels and the bloodshed.
