Six police officers shot dead in northern Mexico

Gunmen killed six police officers on Wednesday (September 28th) in a northern Mexican state where rival cartels are fighting over drug trafficking, authorities said.

Five of the officers were first shot while training at a sports center in Calera de Victor Rosales, the Zacatecas state government said.

Two other police officers who arrived on the scene were in turn targeted and one of them died, it is detailed in a press release.

The governor of Zacatecas, David Monreal, described the facts as a

.

Violence has been on the rise in recent years in Zacatecas, with experts blaming it on a territorial dispute between the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels for control of lucrative cocaine trade routes to the United States.

In January, 10 bodies were found in an abandoned utility vehicle outside the governor's palace in the state capital of Zacatecas.

Some 340,000 people have died violently since 2006 in Mexico, when the government deployed the military to fight drug cartels.