Five people were killed and another wounded Thursday in a gun attack in Acapulco, Mexico, a prosecutor's office said, just three days later. 10 more bodies were found in the tourist city plagued by cartel violence.
The latest attack occurred at a grocery store located in a craft market near the main tourist strip of the famous Pacific coastal city.
The prosecutor's office of the state of Guerrero, where Acapulco is located, has reported in a statement that it is investigating the attack that has left four men and a woman dead and another person injured.
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Authorities said Tuesday that 10 bodies have been found scattered across the once-glamorous resort town, which has been beset by violence linked to organized crime.
Six of the bodies were left Monday night in an avenue near a market, according to the local public security office.
The city's media reported that the bodies had been thrown from a car.
A shooting in the neighborhood of Emiliano Zapata left three more dead, and another person was shot dead in the tourist part of the city.
Recent violence in Acapulco
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.
Last month he was the head of the Acapulco traffic police 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”.
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.
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.
The state of Guerrero is one of the most affected by drug trafficking in Mexico. Disputes between cartels led to 1,890 murders in the state in 2023. Guerrero is one of six states in Mexico that the US State Department advises Americans to avoid entirely, citing crime and violence.
The spiral of criminal violence has seen more than 450,000 people killed in the country since the government of then-President Felipe Calderón launched a military offensive against drug cartels in 2006.
Criminal gangs are involved not only in drug trafficking, but in other illegal activities such as human trafficking, extortion and fuel theft.
Mexico has also recently been plagued by a wave of political violence before the June 2 election. 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.
