A group of gunmen stormed a resort in central Mexico on Saturday and killed at least seven people, including a seven-year-old child.
The incident that happened near the pool at the La Palma resort in Cortazar, which is a small town south of the city of Guanajuato, also left an eighth person seriously injured. The mid-afternoon shooting took the lives of three men and three women apart from a child, reported New York Post.
The suspects started shooting indiscriminately around 4. 30 p.m. Officials said that they also destroyed the resort spa store and took the security cameras that captured the mass murder.
A statement from City Hall in Cortazar said that when cops arrived at the scene, they found "three dead women, three men and a seven-year-old minor, in addition to one person seriously wounded."
Authorities identified all the victims as nationals of Mexico.
The attackers the fled the scene after which Mexican officials used a helicopter to search for them. Mexican police and soldiers were involved in the search for the attackers.
It was not clear who was behind the deadly shooting, and authorities have not shared a possible motive for it.
Videos that were shared on social media showed devastated vacationers in their bathing suits and hugging their kids.
A witness captured a video that showed victims lying on the ground or chairs. They were surrounded by dense smoke that could be from the gunfire. Other vacationers were seen running for shelter.
Arrests have not been made in connection with the shooting.
According to ABC7, Guanajuato is an agricultural and industrial hub, but for years, it has has been Mexico's most violent state.
The violence is due to the ongoing clashes between the criminal organization Santa Rosa de Lima and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. It focuses on drug trafficking as well as fuel theft, as per DW. The Santa Rosa de Lima cartel is said to be supported by the Sinaloa cartel.
The government deployed the military to fight drug cartels in 2006, but it has been a contentious issue. More than 350,000 murders have taken place in Mexico since then. Most of them have been attributed to criminal gangs in Mexico.
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