Mexico Gunman Executes 24 at Rehab Center in Gangland Slaying

(Bloomberg) -- Heavily armed gunmen attacked a drug rehabilitation center in central Mexico on Wednesday, killing at least 24 men in what appeared to be a hit amid a feud between gangs.

Police said that in addition to the dead, seven were wounded at the facility in Irapuato, Guanajuato, about 170 miles northwest of the capital of Mexico City, local officials said in a statement. State authorities said on Twitter they were hunting for the attackers.

Mexico’s government has been pursuing the Santa Rosa cartel linked to fuel theft in the state of Guanajuato, which President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Wednesday noted had one of the highest murder rates in the country. Lopez Obrador has seen his popularity fall as crime continues to rise amid a deep recession and pandemic.

“We will not abandon the people of Guanajuato,” Lopez Obrador said during his daily news conference. He said the governor and local authorities need to take control but that there were already military and national guard troops in the state. “We are going to keep protecting the population,” he said.

Drug-related killings in June rose 8% and deaths have been hitting record highs, according to data from daily Milenio, even as the country remains paralyzed by the world’s sixth-most deadly coronavirus outbreak.

Last Friday, the powerful Jalisco cartel is believed to have been behind an audacious assassination attempt against Mexico City’s security chief in an upscale neighborhood of the capital, deepening concern about Lopez Obrador’s strategy to focus on economic development over heavy handed law enforcement.

The Jalisco cartel is taking advantage of the weakness of the Santa Rosa Cartel after recent government actions, said Alejandro Roa, at security analysis firm Potomac. “This is a clear and direct challenge to the federal government,” Roa said.

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