Death toll rises to 26 in Mexican drug rehab center attack

https://news.yahoo.com/death-toll-rises-26-mexican-201240738.html


EDUARDO VERDUGO
,Associated Press•July 2, 2020


The killing of 26 people in an unregistered drug rehabilitation center in central Mexico is the deadliest such attack in a decade and has led to calls for change in a prosperous state that has become a cartel battleground.

Ricardo Ortiz, mayor of the city of Irapuato in Guanajuato state, raised the death toll from 24 Thursday after two of the seven people injured in the attack died. Ortiz said the other five are out of danger.

Ortiz said there were six or seven attackers; they pulled up in two vehicles at the modest two-story house on the outskirts of Irapuato. Apparently the attackers shot every male at the rehab center, letting only the females go. Ortiz said some residents may have escaped when the attack began.

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The state is the scene of a bloody turf battle between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and a local gang - the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel - and the state has become the most violent in Mexico.

No motive was given in the rehab center attack, but Gov. Diego Sinhue Rodríguez Vallejo said drug gangs appeared to have been involved.

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Ortiz said there are almost 30 unregistered rehab centers in Irapuato. He said some function “as fronts for the cartels.”

Cartels sometimes use the centers to hide addicts and dealers who face attacks from rivals on the streets. Gangs also sometimes use the centers to recruit addicts as dealers.