(Zacatecas) Eight people were shot and killed in an armed attack on a nightclub in Jerez, a city in north-central Mexico at the heart of a region plagued by drug cartel violence, reports said. local authorities on Sunday.
Heavily armed men opened fire in the night from Friday to Saturday in this establishment located in the state of Zacatecas about 670 km north of Mexico City, according to the same sources.
Six people died at the scene, two succumbing to their injuries while receiving medical treatment.
Musicians, customers and employees of the nightclub are among the victims, according to local media.
Five gunshot wounds were still hospitalized on Sunday.
Violence in Zacatecas state last year displaced hundreds of civilians. It stems in particular from a rivalry between the two most powerful cartels in the country, Jalisco Nueva Generacion and Sinaloa.
In March 2022, AFP noted that the two cartels had fought over a village taken over by the security forces and deserted by its inhabitants.
Mexico has recorded more than 340,000 murders and 100,000 missing since the 2006 launch of a militarized offensive against drug traffickers.
One of the architects of this offensive, the former Minister of Security Genaro Garcia Luna, is currently on trial in court in New York for alleged complicity with the Sinaloa cartel of Joaquin Guzman.