Mexico: Gunmen storm water park, leaving 7 dead

A group of armed men attacked a central Mexican water park on Saturday, killing six adults and a 7-year-old child, according to authorities.

Additionally, one person was severely injured in the assault.

The incident occurred in the afternoon at La Palma swimming resort in the Cortazar municipality of Guanajuato state.

A statement from City Hall in Cortazar said that police "arrived at the scene where they found...three dead women, three men and a seven-year-old minor, in addition to one person seriously wounded."

The statement from officials did not provide any insight into the possible reason for the attack.

How the incident unfolded

According to the statement, the gunmen arrived at the La Palma swimming resort at 4:30 p.m. local time (2230 UTC/GMT) with the intention to carry out an attack.

They directly targeted a group of people and started firing, then proceeded to remove the security cameras before leaving the scene, according to the authorities.

A witness at the location captured a video posted on the local news site.

The footage showed victims lying on the ground or chairs, surrounded by dense smoke, presumably from the gunfire. Meanwhile, others ran for shelter.

More than 350,000 murders since 2006

In recent years, there has been a rise in drug-related violence in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato.

Despite being a prosperous industrial region, it has become one of Mexico's most violent areas due to the ongoing conflict between the Santa Rosa de Lima criminal organization and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which focuses on drug trafficking and fuel theft.

The government's deployment of the military to combat drug cartels in 2006 has been a contentious issue, with over 350,000 murders in Mexico since then, most of which have been attributed to criminal gangs.