According to the public prosecutor’s office, eleven people died in a shooting in a small town in Chiapas

EDGAR H. CLEMENTE, Associated Press

2 hours ago

MERIDA, Mexico (AP) — Eleven people were killed Tuesday in a mass shooting in a small town in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, prosecutors said.

The office said the shooting took place in the municipality of Chicomuselo, an area known as a trafficking route for migrants and drug smuggling that has been hit by cartel battles in recent months.

The community – and the remote hamlet of Morelia where the killings occurred – is in a sparsely populated area near Mexico’s border with Guatemala.

There were clashes between drug cartels in the area as recently as Monday, but at least some of the victims of Tuesday’s shootings appeared to be ordinary residents of the city.

The border area of ​​Chiapas has been hit by violence as rival new generation Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels fight for territory. Thousands of people have been displaced as cartels work to control migrant, drug and weapons smuggling routes and forcibly recruit locals.