Not less than 14 “harmless” victims have been killed in drive-by shootings over the weekend in a Mexican border city that could be a hotspot for medication and unlawful border crossings into the US, authorities stated Monday.
Army and safety forces swept the streets of Reynosa after the seemingly random shootings on Saturday and killed 4 suspects.
The people, “who have been aboard a number of automobiles,” might have fired on “harmless residents” as a part of a dispute between rival cartels, Tamaulipas state officers stated.
Reynosa, a metropolis of 600,000 folks, is a hotspot for cartel violence. Unlawful border crossings within the area jumped 400 % within the final 12 months, based on the US Border Patrol.
Olga Ruiz, whose 19-year-old brother Fernando Ruiz was killed by the gunmen, stated he labored as plumber and bricklayer for his stepfather to pay for college, and was fixing an outside drain when he was attacked.
“They heard the gunshots from afar and my stepfather instructed him: ‘Son, you must take shelter,’” she stated. “He requested permission to enter a home however my brother and his companions have been solely about to enter when the automobiles arrived. They stopped in entrance of them and began to shoot.”
Cartels have fought over territory in Reynosa for years. The town’s jap part the place the weekend’s carnage occurred has been dominated by the Gulf Cartel, which specialists consider fractured in 2017.
On Sunday, Reynosa residents “have been quiet as if nothing had occurred, however with a sense of anger as a result of now crime has occurred to harmless folks,” stated native businessman Misael Chavarria Garza.
A number of of the previous governors of the state of Tamaulipas have been accused of corruption and hyperlinks to organized crime.
With Put up wires
