18, including mayor, dead in a gunfight in southern Mexico, say officials

Gunmen opened fire in a municipal hall and a house in a small town in southern Mexico, killing 18 people including the mayor, local media reported citing the Guerrero state Attorney General’s Office.

The armed group, wearing ski masks and driving two SUVs, killed Conrado Mendoza and his father Juan Mendoza, mayor and former mayor, respectively, of San Miguel Totolapan. Most of the ten victims that authorities have identified were members of the local government, Reforma newspaper reported.

Guerrero Governor Evelyn Salgado Pineda, a member of the nation’s ruling Morena party, asked the state Attorney General’s Office to investigate with haste to clarify the events. “There will be no impunity for the malicious aggression against the municipal president and local government officials,” Salgado Pineda said on Twitter.

The deadly attack comes after a wave of gang violence in August that included cartel henchmen torching cars in Colima state after the arrest of their leader and narcos from the Jalisco Nueva Generacion Cartel setting fire to 25 Oxxo convenience stores in central Mexico following other arrests.

San Miguel Totolapan is in the same state as Mexico’s tourist resort of Acapulco. Guerrero’s Attorney General’s Office didn’t immediately respond to phone calls and emails from Bloomberg News seeking comment.

Defense Ministry agents, along with state and local police, transferred the injured to local hospitals, according to a statement from Guerrero’s Public Safety Department.