Eleven people were killed and four injured in a suspected arson attack at a bar in the northern border city of San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora, on Saturday morning, Mexican authorities said, as the country continues to fight violent crime.
The authorities She said A drunk young man had firebombed the club, Beer House, at around 1.33am after being ejected that night. Witnesses said he had harassed women in the bar, leading to him ejecting him, according to the Sonora state attorney general’s office.
The suspect had yet to be identified or apprehended, the attorney general said. Prosecutors did not say whether they believed the incident was related to organized crime.
Some of the victims were rushed across the border for treatment in the United States, while others were treated in local hospitals, prosecutors said.
Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, came to power in 2018 promising to change the country’s approach to cracking down on crime. Four years on, however, criminal organizations have only become more entrenched, even though the country saw a slight decline in homicides last year.
In 2019, a deadly arson attack on a club, allegedly by cartel members, left more than 30 dead in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, in southern Mexico. Armed attackers sealed off the club’s exits, trapping patrons inside.