Mexico City: At least three women and six children, all apparently US citizens, were slaughtered by drug cartel gunmen in northern Mexico, officials said Tuesday. Six children were found alive, one child had a bullet wound and one child is still missing.
Mexican Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo said the gunmen may have mistaken the group’s large SUVs for rival gangs. He said at least five children have been taken to Phoenix, Arizona for treatment.
The slaughter of US citizens on Mexican soil quickly became an international issue, with US President Donald Trump tweeting, “This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage ‘WAR’ on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth.”
Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador however, refused that approach. “The worst thing you can have is war. We declared war, and it didn’t work,” Obrador said at a press conference, referring to the policies of previous administrations. “That is not an option.”
Still, it was the second failure in recent weeks for López Obrador’s ‘hugs not bullets’ anti-crime strategy. Two weeks ago, Mexican troops had to release a drug lord after his supporters mounted armed attacks in Culiacan, Sinaloa.
“The United States stands ready, willing and able to get involved and do the job quickly and effectively,” Donald Trump further said. “The great new President of Mexico has made this a big issue, but the cartels have become so large and powerful that you sometimes need an army to defeat an army!”
A relative said the victims lived in the hamlet of La Mora in Sonora state, a decades-old settlement founded as part of an offshoot of ‘The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’.
The group was attacked while travelling in a convoy of SUVs. The relative asked not to be named for fear of reprisals.
AP