Mayor killed in Mexico region plagued by organized crime ---AFP

MEXICO CITY: A mayor was shot dead at a restaurant in Mexico on Saturday, the regional prosecutor’s office said, the latest politically related killing in the country plagued by violence and organized crime. Guillermo Torres, 39, and his 14-year-old son were attacked at a restaurant in Morelia, the capital of western Michoacan state, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. His son survived. He was elected mayor of Michoacan’s Churumuco municipality as a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party in 2022, but recently quit the party and publicly voiced sympathy for the ruling Morena, according to local media. Torres is the latest politician to be murdered in Mexico in the run-up to the presidential elections on June 2, in which 20,000 local and federal positions and the entire Congress will be voted on. Two mayoral candidates were murdered on February 26: Miguel Angel Zavala Reyes and Armando Perez Luna of the Morena and National Action Party, respectively. Between June 4, 2023, and March 26 this year, 50 people have been murdered in “episodes of electoral violence”, 26 of them aiming for popular seats, according to a report by the Laboratorio Electoral think tank. Michoacan state, Mexico’s main avocado-producing region, is the scene of constant fighting between organized crime groups, including the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel. In February, four military personnel were killed and nine others injured when their military patrol came under attack with explosives while tracking down a criminal group. Killings and abductions are daily occurrences in Mexico, where nearly 450,000 people have been murdered since 2006 in a spiral of drug-related violence, according to official data. Three arrested Meanwhile, Mexican authorities have arrested three suspects in the murder of an eight-year-old girl, after an outraged mob in the tourist town of Taxco lynched a woman accused in the crime. A man and a minor were arrested on Saturday “for the crime of femicide”, Guerrero state prosecutors said in a press statement, along with another man the day before on similar charges. The girl’s family had received anonymous telephone calls demanding a ransom after she disappeared on Wednesday, Mexican media reported, quoting a relative. Residents on Thursday blocked one of the main streets of Taxco, which has been plagued by organized crime, after the child’s body was found on a highway. Security camera footage had circulated earlier showing suspects allegedly putting a black bag in the trunk of a car, prompting suspicions that it contained the girl’s body. A mob gathered outside a house where a woman and two men were located, demanding justice. They dragged out the trio, doused them in gasoline, and beat them with sticks. The woman died and the two men were hospitalized. The prosecutor’s office did not clarify whether the men attacked by the angry mob were among those arrested. “My solidarity is with the family (of the minor), the future is not understood without justice,” the governor of Guerrero, Evelyn Salgado, said Friday on X, formerly Twitter. Worsening crime in Taxco led the United States in January to ban its government employees from visiting the city, located about 170 kilometers (105 miles) from Mexico City. Kidnappings and murders are daily occurrences in Mexico, although adult men are the most common victims, making the young girl’s death particularly shocking. There are regular lynchings of alleged criminals, which experts link to the widespread perception of impunity in the crime-wracked country. A report by researchers at the Autonomous University of Mexico found that 1,423 lynchings were recorded between 2016 and 2022. Migrants found dead Separately, the bodies of eight Chinese migrants were found on a beach in southern Mexico after the boat they were traveling in capsized, officials said Saturday. The seven women and a man were aboard a boat operated by a Mexican that left Tapachula in Chiapas state, on the border with Guatemala, on Thursday, the prosecutor’s office added. The shore where the bodies were discovered on Friday in the state of Oaxaca sits along a route frequently used by people trying to reach the United States. Another migrant survived the ordeal. There was no word on what happened to the Mexican driving the boat. Thousands of undocumented migrants -- often fleeing violence and poverty in their home countries -- transit through Mexico each year trying to reach the US border. Many are from Central America. According to official data, migrants apprehended last year while crossing Mexico also included citizens of China, India and Uzbekistan and other countries far from the Americas. The rising numbers of migrants have overwhelmed Mexican immigration facilities and shelters, while the government has come under increased pressure from the United States to fight the flow as illegal immigration takes center stage in the US presidential election campaign. – AFP