Mexico: Strangers shoot eleven people

Enlarge image

Wall riddled with bullets in Michoacán, where representatives of various drug cartels fight each other (symbolic image)

Photo: ENRIQUE CASTRO / AFP

While people in Mexico celebrate the traditional "Day of the Dead", murder continues in the country devastated by drug-related crime.

In a rural area in Michoacán state, 11 men and boys were found shot dead shortly before midnight on Sunday evening.

Among those killed were six young people between the ages of 15 and 17, the state prosecutor said.

The bodies are now to be autopsied.

According to the investigators, the massacre in the Tangamandapio community was a conflict between warring drug cartels.

A pick-up and several motorcycles without license plates were seized at the scene.

Michoacan is one of the states in Mexico hardest hit by organized crime-related violence.

On October 18, an attack on a bar in the capital, Morelia, left six people dead.

Recordings from the security cameras recording the crime had quickly spread over online networks.

Since the government of Mexico City launched a controversial military anti-drug operation in December 2006, more than 300,000 violent deaths have been recorded in the country.

In the past year alone, the authorities recorded more than 36,000 murders.

ala / dpa