Gunmen have killed at least nine members of a fundamentalist Mormon community in northern Mexico, authorities said yesterday, shooting and burning the bodies of women and children in a brutal assault that highlighted the escalating danger posed by organized-crime groups around the country.
Alfonso Durazo, the minister of public security, told a news conference that three women and six children were killed. They were part of a community of US-Mexican dual citizens.
The vicious attack on the women and children – some of whom were traveling to a wedding – stunned a nation still reeling from a series of violent incidents in recent weeks. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been heavily criticized for an incident last month in which Sinaloa Cartel gunmen seized control of the city of Culiacan and pressured the government to hand over the son of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán shortly after he was captured.
US President Donald Trump tweeted yesterday that “a wonderful family and friends from Utah got caught between two vicious drug cartels, who were shooting at each other, with the result being many great American people killed.” He offered to help Mexico strike back at the cartels, saying they “have become so large and powerful that sometimes you need an army to defeat an army!”
López Obrador thanked Trump for the offer but said that “this is a matter of our sovereignty” and that Mexico would pursue the criminals.
Mexican officials said that cartels might have mistaken the women’s SUVs for those of rival traffickers. But relatives of the victims said the gunmen knew they were firing on civilians.
“There’s been a lot of rival cartels fighting up in this area,” said Lenzo Widmar, one of the community members who found two of the destroyed vehicles. But he said that a child who witnessed the shooting recounted that one of the mothers got out of the vehicle and put her hands up when they were ambushed. “They shot her anyway,” said Widmar. “They knew it was women and children.”
More than 200 bullet casings were found near the vehicles, according to state authorities. Widmar said the group had not received threats lately. All the victims were residents of Mexico, he said.
Another relative of the victims posted video of a charred vehicle in which a mother and her four children had been traveling.
“This is how we live under the government of @lopezobrador,” Alex LeBaron tweeted. “Mexican Mormons, innocent women and children were ambushed in the Chihuahua sierra, shot and burned alive by the Cartels that rule in Mexico!”
Widmar said the attack occurred on Monday morning after the women left the community of La Mora, in northern Sonora state. One of them, Maria Ronita LeBaron, was heading to Arizona to pick up her husband from the airport, he said. The other two women were going to accompany her as far as a main highway near the border, he said, and then head for the community of LeBaron, in nearby Chihuahua state. They were planning to attend a wedding there.
One vehicle, driven by Maria Ronita LeBaron, had car trouble and the convoy returned to La Mora, he said. When the vehicles set out anew, LeBaron fell behind the other two women.
LeBaron was just outside the village of San Miguelito when her Chevrolet Tahoe came under attack, according to a statement by Sonora state security officials. Assailants shot her and her four children -including 6-month-old twins, according to relatives and officials. The vehicle was then set on fire.
About 18km east, toward the Chihuahua state border, authorities found the second vehicle, a white Suburban, with the bodies of a woman and two children, according to state officials. Relatives identified them as Dawna Langford and her 3- and 11-year-old children. Several other children escaped from the vehicle, they said.
The third vehicle, also a white Suburban, was found about a 2km east of the Chihuahua border. The body of a woman was found nearby. She was identified as Christina Langford Johnson.
Source: nzherald
Featured Image: Burnt out vehicles are seen in video posted by a family member. Photo / nzherald
