| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico 
Mexico Drug War Attacks Claim 43 Lives
 Agence France-Presse
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June 15, 2010
| | (channelnewsasia.com) | |
Morelia, Mexico - Drug-related violence in Mexico claimed 43 lives, including 28 prison inmates slain in clashes between rival gangs and 12 police officers killed in an ambush, officials said.
The early morning ambush took place in the western town of Zitacuaro as a group of uniformed police was heading by car to Mexico City. 10 police officers and several assailants were killed in the shootout, Michoacan's Public Security Ministry said.
Two others died from their wounds in hospital.
Soldiers and police launched a manhunt for the surviving attackers, who remain at large, the ministry said.
Police said the attackers removed their dead and wounded from the scene before fleeing, but did not link the shooting to any drug cartel in the region.
Yet Michoacan is the headquarters of the notorious "La Familia" cartel, known as one of Mexico's deadliest drug-trafficking organizations, with a history of violent confrontations with federal police.
La Familia, said to be the top producer of synthetic drugs in Mexico, unleashed a similar bloody assault against police last July that left 16 officers dead.
In another recent attack, the drug cartel kidnapped 12 federal police officers, decapitated them and dumped their bodies on a busy highway.
Michoacan is President Felipe Calderon's home state, from where he launched a nationwide crackdown against drug-trafficking in December 2006, deploying some 50,000 troops and police across Mexico.
But the reinforced security forces have failed to stem the bloody tide of drug-related violence so far.
In the northwestern city of Mazatlan, meanwhile, 28 inmates were killed in prison violence between rival drug gangs, according to an official with the Sinaloa state prosecutor's office.
Earlier reports said 17 people were killed.
Local press reports said around 20 of the inmates at the Mazatlan penitentiary are members of the notorious Los Zetas drug cartel, headed by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the most wanted drug trafficker by the United States.
The reports said the Zetas inmates recently demanded to be transferred out of the prison.
Sinaloa Governor Jesus Aguilar last week warned about serious overcrowding at the Mazatlan jail, where he said 6,000 inmates are presently crammed.
In northern Chihuahua state, three police officers were killed and another wounded in a shootout with suspected drug traffickers in the center of the state capital, also called Chihuahua, the Federal Public Security office said.
The spike in violence mirrored a bloody carnage on Friday, when gunmen killed 39 people across Mexico, including 19 at a drug rehabilitation center in Chihuahua and 20 during separate shootings in northeastern Tamaulipas.
Mexico is undergoing an unprecedented climate of violence as powerful drug cartels vie for rich drug trafficking routes into the United States. Nearly 23,000 people have been killed in the country in the last three years.
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