Mexico, five women found charred to death in Guanajuato

(ANSA) - MEXICO CITY, MARCH 17 - Five women were found charred to death in central Mexico, local authorities said, confirming one of the worst episodes of gender-based violence in the country.

    Six women aged between 19 and 48 had disappeared on March 7 in Celaya in Guanajuato, a state in central Mexico where industry, tourism and violence from organized crime coexist.

The charred remains of five of them have been found, State Attorney Carlos Zamarripa told reporters.

Six people were arrested, he added.

All those arrested said they belonged to a criminal group in the state of Tamaulipas, in the northeast of the country.

The investigations are trying to establish the motives of the crimes.

    Guanajuato was the most violent of Mexico's 32 states in 2022, with 3,260 homicides.

It is a battlefield between two criminal gangs, Santa Rosa de Lima and the Jalisco NuevaGeneracion cartel, who compete for drug trafficking and fuel theft.

Ten women are killed every day in Mexico, according to the United Nations.

In 2022, according to official data, 3,754 women were murdered.

The war between cartels and the intervention of the security forces have caused tens of thousands of deaths and missing persons in Mexico since 2006. (ANSA).