The mayor of a Mexican metropolis tormented by drug violence has been murdered lower than every week after taking workplace.
Alejandro Arcos was discovered lifeless on Sunday in Chilpancingo, a metropolis of round 280,000 folks within the southwestern state of Guerrero. He had been mayor for six days.
Evelyn Salgado, the state governor, mentioned the town was in mourning over a homicide that “fills us with indignation”. His loss of life got here three days after the town authorities’s new secretary, Francisco Tapia, was shot lifeless.
Authorities haven’t launched particulars of the investigation, or suspects. Nevertheless, Guerrero is without doubt one of the worst-affected states for drug violence and drug cartels have murdered dozens of politicians throughout the nation.
Authorities confirmed Arcos’s homicide after unverified social media photos confirmed what gave the impression to be his stays.
Arcos’s social media posts present that he had spent his days in workplace supervising catastrophe aid efforts following Hurricane John final month, which triggered extreme flooding.
Footage have been posted to his Fb account within the hours earlier than his loss of life of conferences with aid employees and residents.
Alejandro Moreno, a Mexican senator, mentioned Arcos and Tapia have been “younger and sincere officers who sought progress for his or her neighborhood”. He referred to as on federal authorities to take cost of the investigation given Guerrero’s “ungovernability”.
Arcos’s Institutional Revolutionary Get together referred to as for justice. “Sufficient of violence and impunity! The folks of Guerrero don’t should reside in concern,” it mentioned on Twitter/X.
Politicians, significantly on the native degree, regularly fall sufferer to bloodshed linked to corruption and the multibillion-dollar medication commerce.
Guerrero is without doubt one of the worst affected states attributable to its location on the Pacific coast smuggling routes and Chilpancingo has lengthy been the scene of turf battles between two drug gangs, the Ardillos and the Tlacos.
A minimum of six candidates for public workplace have been killed within the state within the run-up to Mexico’s 2 June elections.
Greater than 450,000 folks have been murdered and tens of hundreds have gone lacking throughout Mexico for the reason that authorities deployed the military to fight drug trafficking in 2006.