Three bystanders died in the crossfire of a shootout between gunmen, police and soldiers in northern Mexico on Sunday.
The victims were a 14-year-old boy and two women aged 18 and 47, according to a statement by the prosecutors' office in northern Coahuila state.
The statement said gunmen traveling in two vehicles opened fire on a convoy of federal police and soldiers in the city of Saltillo, Coahuila. The officers and soldiers returned fire.
It was not clear who fired the shots that killed the bystanders, but the state attorney general's office said it was investigating and expressed condolences to the victims' families.
"They are civilians who unfortunately died in the exchange of gunfire," it said, describing a running series of confrontations between police and assailants who allegedly fired shots into the air to clear bystanders from their path at one point.
Mexico's army, which has taken a leading role in combating drug gangs, has come under criticism for alleged indiscriminate use of force and firing on civilians.
Read more at the San Francisco Examiner: http://www.sfexaminer.com/world/3-bystanders-killed-in-northern-mexico-shootout-toll-in-party-massacre-rises-to-14-105656428.html#ixzz13MERMBPi
narcoblogger has stepped into the breach left by Mexican journalists, who dare not report as they used to do. Thirty journalists have been killed in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon started his war on the drug cartels in 2006, making Mexico the most deadly country in Latin America for the media. Most are victims of the drug cartels, not caught in crossfire but targeted for reporting what is going on.
Last month, four reporters from the central Mexican state of Durango were kidnapped after reporting a prison riot, which followed the revelation that the prison governor was allowing inmates to go out at night and commit murders. The journalists were freed only after their TV station agreed to broadcast a video, produced by one of the drug cartels, which showed corrupt policemen who were apparently working for a rival cartel.
Today, attention has turned to Tamaulipas state where police have found 72 unburied bodies dumped on a ranch. They are presumably victims of the ever more vicious drug war, which in this part of Mexico pits Los Zetas against the Gulf Cartel. In recent weeks, the industrial city of Monterrey, Mexico’s wealthiest, has been almost brought to a standstill by cartel road blocks, kidnaps and gunbattles, following the murder of a local mayor. Police chiefs, political candidates and senior state officials are frequently targeted for assassination. The drug gangs are trying to seize the Mexican state, and closing down the media is just one part of their plan.
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