CHIHUAHUA STATE, Mexico (Reuters) – At least 26 people were dead or hospitalized after a shootout in the northern Mexican border state of Chihuahua on Wednesday (July 5), the state attorney general’s office said, as drug violence surges in one of Mexico’s bloodiest years on record.
The shootout took place near the mountainous community of Las Varas, in the heart of one of Mexico’s drug trafficking regions, and it involved two armed groups.
It was unclear how many of the victims were dead and how many were alive at hospitals, officials told Reuters.
President Enrique Pena Nieto came to office in 2012 vowing to end years of drug violence.
Although the murder rate fell initially, it has been rising steadily and is on track to hit its highest level since recent government records began in 1997.
The shootout coincided with United States Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly visiting Mexico to meet with Nieto and to discuss cooperation in fighting organized crime.
