Gunmen stormed a hospital in Mexico on Monday to attack a man recovering from a gunshot wound, killing him and two police officers, authorities said.
The attackers shot the man more than a dozen times in the central city of Atlixco and then killed police who tried to prevent them from fleeing. Public Security Secretariat in the state of Puebla said.
“The victim entered the hospital on his own early Sunday morning because he was injured by a gunshot wound during a meeting,” Daniel Ivan Cruz, Puebla’s security secretary, told a news conference.
“Early Monday morning, the person was killed by several men who entered the hospital,” he said.
“After hearing the emergency call and arriving at the scene, the police came under fire and died on the spot,” he added.
Investigators were looking into whether the patient – who was about 30 years old – was involved in illegal activities, the security secretariat said.
A popular tourist destination, Atlixco receives thousands of visitors at this time of year for the Day of the Dead festival.
A view of a Catrina Monumental representing La Malinche as part of the Day of the Dead festivities in Atlixco, Mexico, November 1, 2024. / Credit: CAMILLE AYRAL / REUTERS
Puebla has been plagued by brutal violence before. In April, authorities in the state seven bodies found five of them had been decapitated and another completely dismembered – with a message written on each corpse – in a car abandoned in the middle of traffic on a highway. In 2022, authorities said gunmen were ‘executed’ nine people in an attack on a home in Atlixco.
Increasing violence, much of it linked to drug trafficking and gangs, has killed more than 450,000 people in Mexico since 2006.
On Monday, gunmen killed five members of the same family at a home in a suburb of Acapulco, the former beachside playground of the rich and famous that is now beset by criminal violence, prosecutors said.
Two other people were injured in the attack in the southern state of Guerrero, which has endured years of bloodshed due to wars between drug cartels.
On Friday there was a local leader of the Mexican folk saint cult “La Santa Muerte”. shot at an altar to the skeletal figure. Two other people were killed and eight injured in the attack in the city of Leon, Guanajuato state.
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