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Gunmen have shot dead the mayor of the Mexican municipality of San Mateo Piñas in the southern state of Oaxaca.
The killing of Lilia Gema García Soto on Sunday morning is the latest deadly attack on elected officials in Mexico and García Soto is the second mayor to be killed in the state this year.
Witnesses told local media that armed men arrived on motorcycles and burst into the city hall, shooting at the mayor and a local official, Eli García Ramírez, who was meeting with her.
The governor of Oaxaca, Salomón Jara Cruz, condemned the killing.
“There can be no impunity for this incident. We will collaborate with the State Attorney General’s Office to clarify the facts and deliver justice. My condolences to her family,” he said in a statement posted on social media.
Two municipal police officers were also injured in the attack, according to media reports.
The state authorities said they were deploying operations in the San Mateo Piñas municipality and the surrounding areas following the incident.
“The cabinet has launched an operation to arrest those responsible for the attack,” the Oaxaca government said in a statement.
Euronews contacted the Oaxaca State Attorney General’s Office for comment.
The ambush is the second killing of a mayor in the state this year. In May, Mario Hernández García, the mayor of the Oaxaca municipality of Santiago Amoltepec, was killed alongside two other people who were with him at the time of the attack.
García Soto’s killing also follows deadly violence against public officials in Mexico’s capital. Last month, Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada’s personal secretary, Ximena Guzmán, and advisor, José Muñoz, were killed as they commuted in the city centre.
It was the worst attack in recent years against public officials in the capital, who face a lower risk of political violence compared with their counterparts in other parts of the country.
Last year’s election cycle saw more than 30 candidates for municipal or state positions killed in Mexico.
The country has one of the world’s highest murder rates, chiefly owing to violence driven by drug cartels, according to a 2023 UN report on homicide.