Five youths were shot dead, including a visiting American, and another was wounded by gunmen outside a nightclub in Nuevo Laredo, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas near the US border.
The city's Human Rights Committee denounced in a statement that the attackers were soldiers;
The Secretary of National Defense (Sedena) is investigating what happened, according to the newspaper El Universal.
The human rights group said the youths were heading home in a white Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck as they left the club in the Manuel Cavazos Lema neighborhood early Sunday morning when they were stopped by armed men.
The
truck received more than 20 shots
at the Huasteca y Méndez crossing.
"Neighbors say that at least two young people were finished off with shots to the neck when they were lying on the pavement," he said.
The victims were identified as the Mexicans Gustavo Pérez Beriles, Wilberto Mata Estrada, Jonathan Aguilar Sánchez, Alejandro Trujillo Rocha;
and the American Gustavo Ángel Suárez Castilo.
The young man who survived was identified as Luis Gerardo and is in serious condition in a hospital with at least two bullet wounds, according to the agency.
The massacre infuriated the inhabitants of the area and the relatives of the victims, who clashed with the military, according to a video on social networks, considering that the victims were not armed and there was no reason to shoot them arbitrarily, the statement said.
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Raymundo Ramos, president of the organization, also said that he went to the scene of the massacre to try to rescue an elderly woman who required medical attention but that "the military prevented her from leaving" her house, which is right where the events occurred.
"When Army personnel tried to drag the victims' truck to the facilities of the Attorney General's Office, families of the victims and settlers began to exchange blows with several of the soldiers and the operation got out of control," Ramos explained.
"At least three soldiers used their weapons, rifles and pistols to disperse the protesters, putting the lives of all of us, journalists, neighbors and even children, at risk," he added.
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Ramos assured that during the confrontation with neighbors, one of the soldiers ordered him to record the actions and then they slapped him, threw his phone on the ground and tried to run him over.
The Northeast cartel operates in Nuevo Laredo, and Tamaulipas has been the scene of drug violence and denunciations of human rights violations committed by the armed forces.