Eleven people were killed — including an American — and six more were injured at a nightclub on Mexico's northern border early Saturday, when dozens of people were enjoying a live musical performance and one individual, who had been expelled from the venue for molesting women, returned to set fire to the venue. authorities said.
The incident took place in the city of San Luis Rio Colorado, on the border with Arizona, around 1:30 in the morning (local time). The dead are seven men and four women, including some members of the group that played at the site, Gustavo Romulo Salas, the prosecutor of Sonora, said at a news conference. Most died from smoke inhalation, he added.
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In a second meeting with the media on Saturday afternoon, he confirmed that among the dead were a woman with American nationality and, most likely, dual nationality, and a 17-year-old teenager months shy of turning 18. He also announced the arrest of the alleged assailant at a military checkpoint.
The first indications were that the attacker had thrown a kind of Molotov bomb but Salas explained that, after being taken out of the bar drunk and very upset, he went to his truck, parked it in front of the premises, extracted fuel from it, sprayed the door of the establishment and with a kind of blowtorch started the fire.
"Immediately the flames spread generating chaos, smoke and electricity is interrupted," said the prosecutor, who estimated that there were between 50 and 80 people inside the bar although the investigation is still underway and these data could vary. The security cameras of the premises were burned.
Images posted on social media showed huge flames and people outside shouting desperately: "There are people inside!"
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According to the first testimonies, the attacker was an apparently young man with a high degree of drunkenness who was disrespecting the women in that bar and who had been expelled from another nightclub that same night for another fight.
Salas said firefighters arrived quickly and pulled the victims out through the front door and a back door. The bar had a third exit and the authorities are investigating whether it had all the permits in order.
Ten people died at the scene and another in hospital. Of the six injured, on Saturday afternoon there was one hospitalized in Sonora, three had crossed into the United States to be treated there and the rest were discharged, the prosecutor said.
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He also stressed that it is proven that the fire was caused by "an isolated aggressor" and "there is no element or evidence to suggest that the attack was linked to the payment of extortion.
The assailant left the truck he had and tried to escape the area in the vehicle of a relative of his and in the company of a woman but was identified and arrested at a military checkpoint.
The governor of the state, Alfonso Durazo, thanked via Twitter the support given by the local, state and federal security forces and assured that there will be no impunity in this crime.
San Luis Rio Colorado is a city in the middle of the desert that stretches between Sonora and Arizona and a common crossing of migrants who cross into the United States illegally.
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The Sonora prosecutor ruled out any link between the bar fire and organized crime, but various criminal groups operate in the border area and use it to smuggle drugs, weapons and migrants.
On Saturday, the National Guard reported in a statement the seizure of 250 liters of liquid methamphetamine that was transported in a truck from southern Sonora and that were destined for the border city of Mexicali, capital of the neighboring state of Baja California.