The image of the beach resort of Acapulco has taken a new hit from Mexico’s drug violence, with 27 people killed in less than a day, including 14 men whose bodies were found decapitated at a shopping centre.
Acapulco has seen fierce turf wars between drug gangs, and the bloodshed is scaring some holidaymakers away even though little of the violence happens in tourist areas.
The decapitation killings and most of the other murders that happened in just a few hours from Friday night into yesterday morning also happened in non-tourism areas. But two police officers were shot to death on a major seafront avenue in front of visitors and locals.
The 14 headless bodies, and a 15th intact corpse, were found by police on a street outside a shopping centre accompanied by written warnings from a drug cartel, authorities said.
Hand-written signs left with the bodies were signed by “El Chapo’s People,” a reference to the Sinaloa cartel, which is headed by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, said Fernando Monreal Leyva, director of investigative police.
The messages indicated the Sinaloa cartel killed the 15 men for trying to intrude on the gang’s turf and extort residents.
Mexico’s drug cartels have increasingly taken to beheading their victims in a grisly show of force, but Saturday’s discovery was the largest single group of decapitation victims found in recent years.
In 2008, a group of 12 decapitated bodies were piled outside the Yucatan state capital of Merida. The same year, nine headless men were discovered in the Guerrero state capital of Chilpancingo.
Also killed in Acapulco were the two police officers; six people who were shot dead and stuffed in a taxi, their hands and feet bound; and four others elsewhere in the city. Two police officers were wounded when armed men attacked a police post in the city’s Emiliano Zapata district.
The wave of violence in one of Mexico’s biggest resorts was condemned by the federal government.
“Reprehensible acts of violence such as these underscore the need to fight with determination against organised crime,” a statement from the Interior Ministry said.
At least 30,196 people have died in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against cartels in late 2006.
Authorities said the mayor of a small town was found dead in northern Mexico on Friday. Saul Vara Rivera, mayor of the municipality of Zaragoza, was reported missing by family members Wednesday. His bullet-ridden body was discovered in neighbouring Nuevo Leon state.
At least a dozen mayors were killed nationwide last year in acts of intimidation attributed to drug gangs.
AP