Police officer in Mexico (symbolic image)
Photo: JOSE LUIS GONZALEZ / REUTERS
The Mexican state of Zacatecas has been battling a wave of violence for weeks, which can be traced back to competing drug cartels.
Ten bodies had only appeared in the province in November, nine of which were suspended from a bridge.
Now a car with several corpses was pulled up in front of the government building of the provincial capital of the same name, Zacatecas.
The dead were apparently beaten, Governor David Monreal said in a video on Facebook on Thursday.
He did not give a number, but according to media reports there were six bodies.
According to media reports, the driver of the car should have escaped through an alley, as video recordings showed.
Region has suffered from rival cartels for years
The car was parked early in the morning (local time) and the driver fled, said Monreal from the central square in Zacatecas, which was still decorated for Christmas.
The background was initially unclear.
However, drug gangs have been active in Zacatecas for a long time.
For around 15 years, Mexico has been plagued by a spiral of violence between drug cartels and state security forces.
Since then President Felipe Calderón began militarily fighting the so-called drug war at the end of 2006, around 350,000 people have fallen victim to it.
Another 96,000 are considered to have disappeared.
Mexico's balance sheet for 2021: 92 murders per day
Today there are numerous powerful drug cartels and other criminal groups, often linked to corrupt politicians and security forces.
Most of the crimes are never resolved.
Last year, the number of murders in the North American country fell by a good four percent to 33,410 - according to preliminary figures presented by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Thursday.
That's around 92 murders a day.
fek / dpa
