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The gruesome murder of a 25-year-old woman in Mexico’s capital has unleashed outrage among authorities and rights groups after leaked photos of her mutilated body appeared on the front page of a newspaper. Marches to protest violence against women have intensified in recent months, with demonstrators setting government buildings on fire and daubing monuments with graffiti.
Mexican authorities on Thursday adopted tougher measures against Central American migrants, detaining 800 of them who had entered Mexico illegally from Guatemala intending to reach the border with the United States. Mexico is under intense pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to contain mass movements of migrants, most of them from Central America, who have been crossing through Mexico on their way to the U.S. border.
Nearly 62,000 people have gone missing in Mexico – with most of those disappearing during the six years of the country’s bloody war on drug cartels. Initial figures released last year suggest 41,000 were unaccounted for – but that number has now increased by around 50%. Officials have so far discovered 1,124 corpses in 873 clandestine burial pits. Sites are frequently used by drug and kidnapping gangs to dispose of the bodies of their victims or rivals.
At least 16 inmates have been killed after a riot broke out at a prison in central Mexico, authorities say. Five others were wounded in clashes at the prison facility in the town of Cieneguillas, Zacatecas state. During the riot, which lasted for about two-and-a-half hours, officials say prisoners fought each other using handguns and knives. Violence is often reported at Mexico’s prisons, many of which are overcrowded and dominated by drug gangs.
Archeologists in Mexico have uncovered a large palace likely used by the Mayan elite more than 1,000 years ago in the ancient city of Kuluba. The country’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said the building, measuring six meters (20ft) tall, 55 meters (180ft) long and 15 metres (49ft) wide, was thought to have been inhabited between 600-1050 AD.
Clashes sparked by suspected cartel gunmen in a northern Mexican town killed 20 people this weekend, authorities said, putting more pressure on Mexico’s president to curb gang violence after the United States vowed to label the gangs terrorists. Killings clouded celebrations marking Lopez Obrador’s first year in office, which were buffeted by a march in Mexico City by thousands of people protesting the violence.
Condemning the ambush killings of an American family in Mexico, President Donald Trump spoke Tuesday with the leader of Mexico after offering to help “wage war” on the kinds of drugs cartels accused in the attack. In a conversation with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Trump “made clear that the United States condemns these senseless acts of violence that took the lives of nine American citizens and offered Mexico assistance to ensure the perpetrators face justice.”
Nine members of a Mormon family – three mums and six children – were killed in a massacre in Mexico when they were allegedly caught in the crossfire of rival drug cartels. Seventeen members of the prominent Lebaron Mormon community were apparently travelling to a wedding in a convoy of SUVs when they were “ambushed” about 70 miles south of the US border.
An attack on a bar in Mexico’s Gulf coast city of Coatzacoalcos killed 25 people and injured about a dozen, officials said Wednesday, and they said it was apparently overseen by a man who had been recently arrested but released. “The criminals went in, closed the doors, the emergency exits, and set fire to the place,” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said at his daily morning news conference.
A deluge of hail engulfed the outskirts of Guadalajara on Sunday, half-burying vehicles in ice and damaging nearly 200 homes. The freak hail storm in one of Mexico’s largest cities came as summer temperatures hovered around 31 degrees Centigrade (88 Fahrenheit) in recent days. At least six neighborhoods were covered in ice up to 2 meters (2 yards) deep. Civil Protection personnel and soldiers brought out machinery to clear the roads.