At least 13 police officers were killed in an armed attack in the Guerrero state, southwest Mexico, the state attorney general’s office said Monday.
The incident occurred Monday in the town of El Papayo under the municipality of Coyuca de Benitez. The policemen were attacked by a group of armed men near the Acapulco-Zihuatanejo federal highway, according to police reports.
In a video conference, Gabriel Alejandro Hernandez Mendoza, Guerrero’s deputy prosecutor of investigations, confirmed that among the dead are two police chiefs, one of whom is the secretary of public security of Coyuca de Benitez, Alfredo Alonso Lopez.
The National Police has decided to strengthen its presence and surveillance in the city of Coyuca de Benitez.
Guerrero is one of the Mexican states most affected by the violence of criminal groups, which in recent months have intensified their attacks against security agencies combatting them.
It happened a month after the killing of other security officials in the state.
On Sept. 12, the head of the Attorney General’s Office in Guerrero, Fernando Garcia, was shot dead in the state’s capital Chilpancingo, days after the murder of public prosecutor Victor Manuel Salas.
The coastal state has been historically plagued by violence, a product of the establishment of large criminal syndicates responsible for the manufacture and trafficking of drugs in the country.
State Attorney General Sandra Luz Valdovinos has pointed to La Familia Michoacana, one of Mexico’s most violent and powerful drug cartels, as one of Guerrero’s main generators of violence.
In September, the state reported 1,289 murders, marking one of the most violent periods for Guerrero.
