Rantburg.com
A total of six individuals were killed in ongoing drug and gang related violence in southern Chihuahua in two separate incidents, according to Mexican news accounts.
A news account which appeared in the online edition of El Diario de Juarez news daily, five men were shot, four of them found dead near the village of San Ignacio de los Almanzan in Guadalupe y Calvo municipality Sunday.
Citing the source of a spokesman from the Chihuahua state Fiscalia General del Estado, or attorney general, state police were advised via an anonymous phone call that the victims had been wounded near the San Ignacio de los Almazan river Sunday.
The victims were identified as Gonzalo Alvarez Lopez, 38, Obier Macías Carrillo, 30, Saul Lopez Macias, 28, Jesus Noel Cardenas Macías, 43 and a fourth unidentified man. Cardenas Macias was not present at the scene because reportedly his family had taken him to receive medical care, but Cardenas Macias died before reaching help.
The five victims were all shot with AK-47 rand AR-15 rifles.
A separate account in El Diario de Juarez southern Chihuahua Fiscalia Jesus Chavez said that the five were killed in an armed encounter between two local rival criminal groups
Meanwhile elsewhere in Guadalupe y Calvo municipality a 60 year old man was found strangled and beaten to death, according to a news account which appeared on the website of El Sol de Parral news daily.
Tomás Garcia Zuñiga was taken from a residence in a home invasion in Hiela Mucho Sunday and was later found dead nearby.
The news report said that four armed suspects carrying AK-47 and AR-15 rifles broke into the residence and threatened to take everyone present prisoner. The family members instead fled, so the suspects took Garcia Zuñiga.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com and BorderlandBeat.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com