EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Residents of a rural community in Guerrero, Mexico, on Sunday buried eight of their neighbors killed in an ambush in a region rife with drug violence.
“The municipal government of Ayutla de los Libres laments the death of the community police officers slain yesterday, and we grieve with their family and friends,” town leaders said in a funeral notice posted on social media.
The community police were on patrol not far from the nearby town of Cajeme on Saturday night when their two pickups came under fire. Mexican news reports state another eight community police officers were wounded by gunfire, with five remaining hospitalized on Monday.
Residents of Ayutla reportedly did not allow Guerrero state authorities to investigate and buried their dead right away. Ayutla is about 60 miles inland from the resort city of Acapulco.
Guerrero Undersecretary of Government Francisco Rodriguez Cisneros on Monday told Milenio that state and federal officials were shoring up their presence in the region.
“This part of the coast has had incidents that require everyone’s involvement. When there is a situation of extraordinary violence, the federal government and the state government deploy all resources so we can resolve any situation,” Rodriguez told reporters.
The Mexican government in October 2023 deployed 300 members of the Nation Guard to Coyuca de Benitez, a community 90 miles northwest of Acapulco, when drug gang members killed 13 municipal police officers, including the public safety secretary.
Mexican news outlets reported the officers received a bogus call about a kidnapping in progress and were ambushed when they arrived.
The region is contested by more than a dozen gangs affiliated to different cartels, including the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, La Familia Michoacana, Guerreros Unidos, the Sinaloa cartel and the Beltran Leyva cartel., according to human rights organizations in the region.
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