Gunmen burst into an unregistered drug rehabilitation centre in central Mexico and opened fireplace Wednesday, killing 24 individuals and wounding seven, authorities mentioned.
Police within the north-central state of Guanajuato mentioned the assault occurred within the metropolis of Irapuato. Three of the seven wounded had been reported in severe situation.
Apparently the attackers shot everybody on the rehab centre. State police mentioned no one was kidnapped. Photographs purporting to indicate the scene recommend these on the centre had been mendacity down once they had been sprayed with bullets.
Guanajuato is the scene of a bloody turf battle between the Jalisco cartel and an area gang, and the state has change into essentially the most violent in Mexico.
No motive was given within the assault, however Gov. Diego Sinhue Rodriguez Vallejo mentioned drug gangs appeared to have been concerned.
“I deeply remorse and condemn the occasions in Irapuato this afternoon,” Sinhue wrote. “The violence generated by organized crime not solely takes the lives of the younger, however it takes the peace from households in Guanajuato.”
Earlier assaults on rehab centres
Mexican drug gangs have killed suspected street-level sellers from rival gangs sheltering at such amenities up to now. It was one of many deadliest assaults on a rehab centre since 19 individuals had been killed in 2010 in Chihuahua metropolis in northern Mexico. Greater than a dozen assaults on such amenities have occurred since then.
Mexico has lengthy had issues with rehab centres as a result of most are privately run, underfunded and sometimes commit abuses towards recovering addicts. The federal government spends comparatively little cash on rehabilitation, usually making the unregistered centres the one possibility out there for poor households.
As well as, addicts and sellers who face assaults from rivals on the streets typically take refuge on the rehab clinics, making the clinics themselves targets for assault. Nonetheless different gangs have been accused of forcibly recruiting recovering addicts on the centres as sellers, and killing them in the event that they refused.