Two Jesuits are murdered in a church in Chihuahua when they tried to shelter a person persecuted by criminals

At least one armed person entered a church in the Sierra Tarahumara region of Chihuahua, Mexico, and killed two Jesuit priests, the Catholic order said in a statement Tuesday.

Javier Campos Morales and Joaquín César Mora Salazar died on Monday in a temple in the community of Cerocahui;

, as indicated by the Society of Jesus.

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"We demand that all protection measures be adopted immediately to safeguard the lives of our Jesuit brothers, sisters, lay people and the entire Cerocahui community," the religious community added in its statement.

Javier Campos Morales (left) and Joaquín César Mora Salazar, Jesuit priests assassinated in Chihuahua, Mexico, on June 21, 2022. Company of Jesus

The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said this Tuesday in his morning press conference that the authorities are investigating the crime.

"The information we have so far, up to five in the morning, [is that] they entered the Cerocahui church chasing a person, they murdered him, the priests came out and apparently they were also murdered, we are attending to this matter," Lopez Obrador said.

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"It is an area with a significant presence of organized crime," explained the president, "it seems that there is already information on the possible perpetrators of these crimes."

In a statement, the provincial head of the Society of Jesus in Mexico, Luis Gerardo Moro Madrid, reported that the priests "were killed in the context of violence in this country, after trying to defend a man who sought refuge in the temple and that he was being chased by an armed person.”

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June 17, 202201:46

The Society of Jesus in Mexico denounced the situation of generalized violence in the north of the country:

. "

The last three years have been the most violent in modern times in the country, with 33,316 homicides in 2021;

34,554 in 2020;

and 34,688 in 2019. In Chihuahua, more than 900 investigation files for intentional homicide have been opened so far this year.

With information from