At least 18 people were killed in a double armed attack in the municipality of San Miguel Totolapan, in the Tierra Caliente region in the Mexican state of Guerrero, in the south of the country, among whom was the mayor Conrado Mendoza Almeida and several other officials.
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According to regional information from the State Attorney General’s Office (FGE), there were two attacks recorded on Wednesday afternoon.
The first attack was against the headquarters of the Municipal Palace where the facade received a burst of bullet shots and the glass broken by the impacts of heavy caliber weapons.
The second occurred in a nearby place where a meeting led by President Conrado Mendoza Almeida was taking place, where the attendees were also killed.
According to the part of the Prosecutor’s Office, of the 18 people murdered in the place, 10 were identified, among them the mayor and his father, former mayor Juan Mendoza Acosta.
Among the people identified is also the director of Public Security of the municipality, Freddy Martínez Suazo; the advisor to the president, Roberto Mata Marcial; the administrator of the health jurisdiction 01 of Tlapehuala, Genesis Araujo Marcos, as well as two security agents of the mayor.
In addition, it was reported that three injured people were airlifted for care.
Meanwhile, through a statement, the governor of the state of Guerrero, Evelyn Salgado Pineda, lamented the murder of the mayor, condemned the events and assured that there will be no impunity.
The parliamentary group of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in the local Congress, to which the mayor and his father belonged, demanded that the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) attract investigations given the magnitude of the attack.
In a first report of the attack it was noted, unofficially, that at least 10 people had been killed.
The assassination of the mayor was initially confirmed by the PRD leadership through a note demanding Justice.
#Urgent 🚨 They attack the municipal presidency of San Miguel Totolapan and execute the PRD mayor, Conrado Mendoza Almeda, his father and seven municipal police officers, in Guerrero; They point to the group of ‘Los Tequileros’ as those responsible. Information of #Last minute Developing pic.twitter.com/xdqPOLUBTy
– Nation321 (@Nation321) October 5, 2022
While the Government of Guerrero, through the Coordination Table for the Construction of Peace, issued a statement condemning the events “in which Mayor Conrado N was deprived of his life.”
The attack was attributed to the criminal group Los Tequileros, which minutes after the event released a video on social networks in which it announced its return to that region of drug production and transfer, which is disputed with La Familia Michoacana, a criminal group from the neighbor Michoacan state.
After the armed attack, blockades were reported on the Iguala-Ciudad Altamirano federal highway, in Guerrero, with heavy cargo vehicles and buses to prevent the arrival of security forces, however it has been reported that the area is already guarded by federal agents. and state.
The state government reported that the area is guarded to provide security to the population, and that the Ministry of National Defense (Sedena) deployed ground and air units to locate and arrest those responsible for the attack.
The Los Tequileros criminal group devastated the Tierra Caliente region between 2015 and 2017 until its leader, Raybel Jacobo de Almonte, originally from the town of San Antonio de La Gavia, belonging to that municipality, was assassinated.
After the murder of Mendoza Almeda, during the six-year term of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which began in December 2018, 60 proprietary mayors have been assassinated in Mexico, including mayors, aldermen and trustees, according to the consulting firm Etellekt, a benchmark for political violence. .
*With information from EFE
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