Gunmen storm hospital, killing patients and two police officers in Mexico

Gunmen stormed a hospital in Mexico on Monday to attack a man recovering from a gunshot wound, killing him and two police officers, authorities said.

The attackers shot the man more than 10 times in downtown Atlixco and then killed police officers who tried to stop them from escaping, the public security secretariat in Puebla state said.

“The victim initially arrived at the hospital alone early Sunday morning after being injured by a gunshot wound during a gathering,” Puebla Security Minister Daniel Ivan Cruz said at a news conference.

“Early Monday morning, the person was killed by several men who entered the hospital,” he said.

“After the police heard the distress call and arrived at the scene, she came under fire and died on the spot,” he added.

The security secretariat said investigators were checking whether the patient, aged around 30, was involved in illegal activities.

Atlixco, a popular tourist destination, welcomes thousands of Day of the Dead visitors this time of year.

Puebla has been hit by brutal violence before. The state authorities informed in April seven bodies found Five of them were beheaded and another completely dismembered – with a message on each body – in a car abandoned in the middle of traffic on a major highway. In 2022, according to authorities, gunmen were “executed” nine people in an attack on a home in Atlixco.

Since 2006, more than 450,000 people have been murdered in Mexico in rising violence, much of it linked to drug trafficking and gangs.

On Monday, gunmen killed five members of the same family at a home in a suburb of Acapulco, the former beach playground of the rich and famous now plagued by criminal violence, prosecutors said.

Two other people were injured in the attack in the southern state of Guerrero, which has seen years of bloodshed linked to turf wars between drug cartels.

A local leader of the Mexican folk saint cult “La Santa Muerte” was present on Friday shot down at an altar for the skeleton figure. Two more people were killed and eight injured in the attack in the city of Leon, Guanajuato state.