Over 20 reported killed, dead across Mexico

Twenty three at least were reported killed or found dead around Mexico through 23-27 February, including policemen and a nine-year-old child. Five of these including a nine-year-old girl were shot dead in the northern district of Lerdo on 24 February; four of them were a relatives, Proceso reported. A policewoman died on 23 February of gunshot wounds received in one of the attacks that killed five policemen on 21 February in the northern districts of Gómez Palacio and nearby Lerdo. A Belgian businessman was shot dead in the west-coast resort of Acapulco in Guerrero on 23 February. The next day a spokesman for the state of Guerrero, Arturo Martínez Nuñez, said initial investigations suggested theft or a personal vendetta as possible motives of the murder, Proceso reported. The review reported the discovery of four bodies on 23-24 February in several districts of the northern state of Chihuahua, two or three of them being headless. A restaurant owner and his son were shot dead at their workplace in the city of Morelia west of Mexico City on 23 February, Proceso reported. It counted at least four violent deaths around Mexico on 25 February, including of an infantryman shot while on patrol in the western state of Michoacán. Two died on 26 February when gunmen attacked police on the streets of the north-central city of Zacatecas, although state authorities did not immediately state who the victims were, Milenio reported, citing Notimex. Armed residents or members of the self-styled community police in a part of the state of Guerrero were reported to have found ditches or secret graves that yielded the bones of four individuals on 26 or 27 February, although the site was expected to possibly yield more. Members of the Tecoanapa community police found five ditches in a locality called La Parota in the district of Tototepec, Excelsior reported on 27 February. Locals had earlier claimed gangs tortured and murdered victims in this area, Excelsior wrote. In northern Mexico on 26 February, armed men freed 12 inmates from a prison in the district of Miguel Alemán, Proceso reported, citing declarations by police and the chief prosecutor's office of the state of Tamaulipas.