Ten bodies were found strewn across Mexico's once-glamorous resort city of Acapulco, which has been beset by cartel-linked violence, local security officials said.
The bodies of two women and four men were left Monday night in an avenue near a market, the public security office said. Local media reported that the bodies had been thrown from a car.
A shooting in the neighborhood of Emiliano Zapata left three men dead and three others wounded, officials added.
Authorities found another man shot to death in the tourist part of town.
Acapulco was once a playground for the rich and famous, but it has lost its luster in the past decade as foreign tourists have been scared off by the bloodshed that has made it one of the cities most violent in the world. The city is also still struggling to recover from being one affected by Category 5 Hurricane Otis in October Otis left at least 52 dead and destroyed or damaged most of the hotels.
Javier Verdin / REUTERS
Acapulco is part of the state of Guerrero, one of the most affected by drug trafficking in the country. It is among six states in Mexico that the US State Department advises Americans to avoid entirely, citing crime and violence. Disputes between cartels led to 1,890 murders in the state in 2023.
Acapulco has been bled by turf wars between gangs since at least 2006. Gangs fight over drug sales and the proceeds to extort protection payments from businesses, bars, bus and taxi drivers.
The deadly trend continues in Acapulco
Acapulco has already seen a wave of violence this year. Just last month, the head of the traffic police was shot dead when the assailants opened fire on him in a street relatively far from the station's beaches.
In February, the strangled bodies of two men were found on Acapulco's popular Condesa Beach. Prosecutors said the men's bodies showed signs of “torture by ligature” with “marks of torture around the neck”.
That same month, the state government deployed 60 armed detectives to patrol the beaches “due to recent violent incidents”.
Around the same time, at least three people were shot dead on the beaches of Acapulco, one by gunmen who arrived – and escaped – on board a ship.
In April 2023, three people were killed in a shooting and subsequent chase by police officers at a restaurant on the beach in Acapulco. Authorities said police chased the attackers down the beach as they “escaped into the sea.”
The spiral of criminal violence has seen more than 450,000 people murdered in Mexico since then-President Felipe Calderón's government launched a military offensive against drug cartels in 2006.
Mexico has recently been affected by wave of political violence before the June 2 elections. More than two dozen politicians have been killed since September last year, according to the NGO Data Civica, including an aspiring mayor who was shot dead last month right when he started campaigning.
