Mexico: Two Jesuit priests killed

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Forensic scientists at work in Mexico (archive)

Photo: ULISES RUIZ / AFP

The bodies of two priests killed in Mexico, which were initially abducted, have been found.

The 79 and 81-year-old Jesuits were killed Monday in their church in the indigenous community of Cerocahui in northern Mexico's Tarahumara Mountains.

Their bodies were found on Wednesday after a large-scale search and have since been identified, the Catholic religious community of the Society of Jesus in Mexico announced on Thursday.

Armed men had taken the bodies with them beforehand.

A reward equivalent to 237,000 euros has been offered for information on the whereabouts of the man who shot 79-year-old Javier Campos Morales, his 81-year-old friar Joaquín César Mora Salazar and a travel guide on Monday.

Drug cartels have dominated the state of Chihuahua for years

A third person killed in the incident was a tourist guide, according to the Jesuits.

According to media reports, an armed man followed him into the church.

The background to the crime initially remained unclear.

The region in the state of Chihuahua has suffered from drug cartel violence for years.

According to the International Crisis Group, around 200 criminal groups are active in Mexico.

They are involved, among other things, in drug smuggling into the USA as well as in kidnapping, extortion and petrol theft.

Some are also fighting for control of legal businesses like avocado growing.

"So many murders in Mexico!"

Since the state began militarily waging the so-called drug war in 2006, the spiral of violence has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

The murder rate per inhabitant there was recently around 100 times higher than in Germany.

More than 100,000 people are believed to have disappeared in Mexico.

About 98 percent of crimes go unsolved.

"So many murders in Mexico!" I extend affection and prayer to the Catholic community affected by this tragedy," Pope Francis, himself a Jesuit, said Wednesday at the end of a general audience in Rome.

dop/dpa