Mayor reportedly beheaded days after taking office in Mexico amid rise in cartel violence

The mayor of a city in southern Mexico has been killed less than a week after taking office, authorities said Sunday, the latest in a series of attacks on politicians in the violence-wracked Latin American country.

The killing of Chilpancingo Mayor Alejandro Arcos “fills us with outrage,” Guerrero state Governor Evelyn Salgado wrote on social media, without providing further details on the circumstances.

Local media reported that Arcos had been beheaded {snip}

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Arcos was elected in June as a representative of an opposition coalition that also included the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which denounced his killing as a “cowardly crime” and called for justice.

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According to PRI President Alejandro Moreno, his killing came just days after the murder of another city official, Francisco Tapia.

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Guerrero, one of Mexico’s poorest states, has endured years of violence linked to wars between cartels battling for control over drug production and trafficking.

Last year, 1,890 murders were recorded in the state, home to the seaside resort Acapulcoa former playground of the rich and famous, now plagued by crime. Guerrero is one of six states in Mexico that the U.S. State Department advises Americans to avoid entirely, citing crime and violence.

More than 450,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands have gone missing across Mexico in a spiral of violence since the government deployed the military to combat drug trafficking in 2006.

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