Eight people were killed and another wounded Wednesday in an exchange of gunfire between alleged thugs in Guachochi, in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, local authorities said.

The exchange of gunfire took place on a road in a mountainous isolated zone inhabited by indigenous Taraumara tribes, considered part of drug trafficking routes to the US market, the prosecutor’s office said in a press release.

Eight people were found dead, including three charred bodies. The injured was taken to hospitals. Two burnt cars were also found on the spot, according to the same source.

According to Mexican media reports, two rival cores of the Sinaloa cartel, one of the strongest drug-trafficking gangs in Mexico, clashed.

According to the press in the state of Chihuahua, armed conflicts have been multiplying for weeks in Guachochi and many families have decided to leave the town of about 14,500 inhabitants.

In 2022 in Cherokee, another town in the same region, two Jesuit priests and a tour guide were murdered by a gunman inside a church. The driver, who had been kidnapped, initially managed to escape and found refuge in the church, but an executioner found him and killed him, as well as the two priests.