Authorities reported on Sunday that the mayor of a city in southern Mexico was killed less than a week after taking office, adding to a troubling trend of violence against politicians in the crime-ridden Latin American nation.
Guerrero State Governor Evelyn Salgado expressed her outrage on social media regarding the murder of Chilpancingo Mayor Alejandro Arcos, though she did not elaborate on the details surrounding the incident.
According to local reports, Arcos was decapitated, but this has yet to be officially verified.
Elected in June, Arcos was part of an opposition coalition that included the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which condemned his death as a “cowardly act” and demanded justice.
“Enough of violence and impunity! The people of Guerrero do not deserve to live in fear,” the PRI stated on X.
His assassination occurred just days following the death of another municipal official, Francisco Tapia, as stated by PRI president Alejandro Moreno.
“They had been in office for less than a week. Young and honest officials who sought progress for their community,” Moreno said on X.
Guerrero, one of the least affluent states in Mexico, has faced years of violence associated with territorial battles among cartels competing for dominance in drug production and trafficking.
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In the previous year, the state recorded 1,890 homicides, including the coastal resort city of Acapulco, once a haven for the affluent, but now plagued by criminal activity.
Nationwide in Mexico, over 450,000 individuals have lost their lives, and countless others have disappeared amid escalating violence since the military was deployed in 2006 to address drug trafficking.
Local politicians are often casualties of the violence tied to corruption and the lucrative drug industry.
Addressing cartel-related violence, which has turned murder and abduction into everyday occurrences in Mexico, is one of the significant challenges for Claudia Sheinbaum, the country’s first female president.
Sheinbaum, who previously served as the mayor of Mexico City and took office on October 1st, has committed to following her predecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” approach, which focuses on social policies to combat crime at its source.
She plans to announce her security strategy on Tuesday.
According to official statistics, at least 24 politicians were killed during an especially violent election cycle leading up to the June elections, which were won by a prominent member of the ruling party by a wide margin.
AFP
