Ten bodies were found Thursday in a car parked in front of the state government headquarters in Sakatekas, northern Mexico. It is an area controlled by two of the strongest and most feared drug cartels in the country.
“At 05:30 (local time; at 13:30 Greek time), I was informed of a gray car (…) abandoned here in front of the government building with the bodies of people who had apparently been beaten.” said the governor, David Montreal, via social networking sites.
A total of ten bodies were found inside the car, according to the newspaper La Jornada. Local media initially reported that the car, a Mazda SUV, parked a driver who appeared to be alone and that six bodies were found in the vehicle.
Mr Montreal later said yesterday that two suspects had been arrested.
According to the Mexican authorities, the state of Sakatekas has recently become a battlefield of the Sinaloa cartel and the New Generation of Jalisco.
In late November, the President of the Republic, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, went to the state after about fifteen bodies were found hanged in public within a few days. His government has announced it is sending reinforcements, another 460 troops, to the state where 4,000 have already been deployed.
Sakatekas has been ruled by the National Renaissance Movement (MORENA), the party of President Lopez Obrador, since September.
In 2021, 1,050 homicides were officially recorded in the state, about 260 more than in 2020, according to Sakateka authorities.
According to official figures, Mexico has counted some 300,000 killings since 2006, when then-President Felipe Calderon declared a so-called war on drugs, deploying an army inside the country.
The current head of state says he prefers another policy, which he sums up with the phrase “abrazos, no balazos” (“hugs, not rifles”) to tackle the cartels, but keeps the armed forces deployed throughout the territory. His government also set up a new security force, the National Guard, in March 2019 to fight organized crime.
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