Gunmen kill 19 at Mexican rehab centre

A GROUP of more than 30 gunmen have stormed a northern Mexican drug rehabilitation centre and opened fire, killing 19 people and wounding four.

The rampage, the latest in a wave of violence linked to the narcotics trade, took place in the northern city of Chihuahua near midnight on Thursday, when the gunmen arrived aboard six trucks, according to a federal police official.

Climbing to the second floor of the Templo Cristiano Fe y Vida (Christian Faith and Life Temple), they fired large-caliber weapons at patients and employees, killing 14. They fatally shot another five persons before fleeing.

“At this time there are 19 deaths confirmed,” the official told AFP on Friday.

Chihuahua is the scene of a bloody struggle between drug cartels fighting for control of the lucrative trade in cocaine, mainly to the United States.

Authorities say rehab centres are often targeted by the cartels because they are used by individuals selling small quantities of drugs and as a refuge from violence or rival gangs.

Police said the rehab centre may have had members of the “Los Mexicles” gang linked to the Sinaloa cartel, which is warring with “Los Aztecos,” affiliated with the Juarez cartel.

In September 2009, there were two similar attacks that left 28 dead in two drug rehabilitation centres in Ciudad Juarez, a city of about one million people on the border with the United States that is the most dangerous in Mexico.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon condemned the violence and expressed his condolences to the families of the victims.

“These are outrageous acts that reinforce the conviction of the need to use all out forces to fight criminal groups engaged in such acts of barbarism,” Mr Calderon said in a statement from Johannesburg, where he was attending the start of the World Cup.

About 23,000 people have died in surging drug-related violence following the launch of a military clampdown on organised crime, involving about 50,000 troops, at the end of 2006.

Earlier this week, eight suspected members of the Beltran Leyva drug gang, among them two Colombian nationals, were killed in a clash with Mexican soldiers

A human rights group said this week Mexico’s brutal drug war has killed about 913 children since December 2006, and that Mr Calderon’s strategy against the cartels has failed.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply