Mexico City, March 3. Two armed incidents between allegedly civilian groups have left at least one dead from stray bullets and several injured in the border town of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, in northern Mexico, state authorities reported on Friday.
“The Secretary of State for Public Security informs the population of Matamoros that in the last hour there have been two armed incidents between unidentified civilians, deploring deaths and injuries. The accuracy of the victims is corroborated,” the agency said in a brief statement.
According to local media, at least one woman lost her life due to a stray bullet during these clashes.
Faced with these facts, the authorities recommended that the general population stay at home so as not to expose their integrity.
Additionally, they said elements of the Department of National Defense, Navy, National Guard, State Guard, and federal and state prosecutors “have increased their presence through visits from across the urban area and its surroundings to protect citizens”.
The city of Matamoros is considered the birthplace of the Gulf Cartel, which was established in the 1980s, and since then it has maintained control of the city, neighboring Brownsville, Texas.
A few years ago, the prosecutor’s office discovered a piece of land on the outskirts of Matamoros and very close to the border with the United States known as “Ejido la Bartolina”, where the criminals made their victims disappear by burning them.
In this area, 500 kilos of bones were found, reported Karla Quintana, head of the National Commission for the Search of Missing Persons, who describes these places as “extermination zones”.
The events come just days after reporting a 6.43% annual increase in homicides in January in Mexico, which last year recorded 30,968 murders after the most violent two years in its history. EFE
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