Police find 24 bodies in Acapulco

Police have found 24 bodies buried in 10 graves in an isolated point in Mexico's west-coast resort of Acapulco, after a month-long search that followed an anonymous phone tip; a caller informed police in September that criminals seemed to be burying their victims in La Piedra del Chivo, a high point overlooking the Bay of Acapulco. A first body was found on 12 September and excavations so far have yielded 23 more "human remains," Milenio reported on 22 October. The point is located between the Icacos and Costa Azul neighbourhoods, and reached after walking 2.5 kilometres. Another phone call on 21 October led a police patrol into an ambush wherein a policeman was killed and three were injured, in the district of Coyuca de Benítez also in the west-coast state of Guerrero. Police were fired on when they arrived at the spot to which they had been called; the assailants escaped after a shootout, Milenio reported. The daily cited police sources as saying that practically all settlements in the highlands of Guerrero between the Coyuca de Benítez and Atoyac de Álvarez districts further north became "ghost towns" after 19:00 hours, as residents stayed inside their homes for fear of crime. Police and troops were reportedly to launch an operation to flush out criminals from this part of Guerrero.