Ten people were violently murdered, four of them dismembered, in the last 48 hours in the Mexican state of Veracruz, in western Mexico, according to local authorities.
The crimes occurred on Friday, Saturday and early Sunday in
different regions of the state
, which for more than a decade has been mired in violence related to the dispute between drug trafficking gangs.
The victims were found in the municipalities of Atoyac, Yanga, Omealca, Sayula de Alemán, Minatitlán and Coatzacoalcos, an account from the EFE agency indicated.
[A young woman is murdered in an armed attack during a protest against violence against women in Mexico]
In cities like Coatzacoalcos, in Veracruz, armed violence has escalated.
Authorities claim to have arrested 467 members of criminal groups in the state in 2021 (File) Rebecca Blackwell / AP
Nine murders were reported on Saturday.
In four of them,
the remains of three dismembered men and a woman were found
in the municipality of Atoyac, a central mountainous area of Veracruz.
The human remains were abandoned on the Córdoba-Paso del Macho highway, where a narco-message was left with threats to police chiefs in the area.
Motorists found the remains in black bags left on the side of the state highway, local press reported.
As of this Sunday, the victims had not been identified.
In Yanga, the shooting murder of a 25-year-old woman was also reported;
in Sayula de Alemán, two bodies were abandoned on a rural road;
in Minatitlán they shot and killed two people in two different events;
while in Omealca,
the owner of a bar was kidnapped
and, later, his lifeless body was abandoned on the public highway.
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In the last three years, the Government of Veracruz reported the arrest of
60 plaza
chiefs (drug traffickers in charge of an area) and 2,700 members of criminal groups.
While the State Secretariat of Public Security detailed that this year alone there are 33 plaza chiefs and 467 members of captured criminal groups.
Among the most important recorded captures is that of the now former local Oaxaca deputy known as "El Gato", who was considered a generator of violence in the border area of Veracruz and Oaxaca.
[An armed group uses three car bombs to enter a prison in Mexico and free nine prisoners]
According to the civil organization Causa en Común, Veracruz has held
the fifth national position
so far this year
with the highest number of atrocity cases
registered with 142 cases.
From January to August, there have been at least 3,655 atrocities and 4,824 victims.
The first two years of the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador were the most violent since there are records in Mexico, with 34,690 murder victims in 2019 and 34,558 in 2020.