MEXICO CITY: Gunmen burst into a sports hall in central Mexico and shot dead a local government official attending an amateur basketball game on Saturday, local authorities said.
Families and children had gathered at the sports center in the violent state of Guanajuato, where Ignacio Alejandro Roaro, a city council secretary in Apaseo el Grande, was killed.
The city council “strongly condemns the treacherous, despicable, and cowardly attack that occurred this Saturday, in which our colleague and friend, city council secretary Ignacio Alejandro Roaro, lost his life,“ it said in a statement.
Local media said an armed man had been arrested.
Guanajuato is a thriving industrial hub and home to several popular tourist destinations, but it is also Mexico’s deadliest state due to gang turf wars, according to official homicide statistics.
In June, 11 people were shot dead and about 20 others injured in a shooting targeting a neighborhood party in Irapuato, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Apaseo el Grande.
A month earlier, 17 bodies were found by investigators in an abandoned house in Irapuato.
Much of the violence in Guanajuato is linked to conflict between the Santa Rosa de Lima gang and the Jalisco New Generation cartel, one of the most powerful in the Latin American nation.
Guanajuato recorded more than 3,000 murders last year, the most of any Mexican state and accounting for 10.5 percent of the cases nationwide, according to official figures. – AFP
