Gunmen open fire on customers at bar in Mexico, killing 5 and wounding 7

A shooting at a bar in southeastern Mexico left five people dead and seven wounded, authorities said Sunday, the latest in a series of similar attacks in the violence-plagued country.

A manhunt was launched for the perpetrators of the shooting on Saturday night in the city of Villahermosa, in Tabasco state, the secretariat of security and civilian protection said in a statement.

“Five people lost their lives and seven were injured,” it said.

“Analysis of video surveillance cameras is being carried out and elements of the state and federal authorities have deployed coordinated patrols to locate and arrest those responsible,” it added.

According to local media, unidentified gunmen burst into the bar La Casita Azul and opened fire at customers, leaving bloodied bodies strewn on the floor.

Tabasco, home to oil production facilities, has seen an increase in violent crime in recent months. Just last month, seven inmates were killed in a prison riot in Tabasco.

In November, six people were killed and 10 wounded in another armed attack on a bar in Villahermosa.

That incident came two weeks after an attack on a bar left 10 dead in the city of Queretaro, in a central region that until now had been spared from violence linked to organized crime.

The same weekend, six people were killed in a shooting in a bar in a suburb of Mexico City.

In December, eight people were killed after gunmen pulled up to a roadside stand in north-central Mexico and opened fire on customers and bystanders.

Drug-related violence has seen more than 450,000 people killed in Mexico since the government deployed the army to combat trafficking in 2006, according to official figures.

Gang-related violence has continued unabated after Mexico’s new president Claudia Sheinbaum took office on October 1.

She has ruled out declaring war on the cartels and instead proposed a strategy she described as being based on gathering intelligence to sap their operational capacity.

Sheinbaum also wants to carry on with her predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s policy of attacking crime at its roots, with investment in social spending and crime prevention.