Members of a drugs cartel have gunned down nine women and children in the bloodiest attack on Americans in Mexico for years, in what could have been a tragic case of mistaken identity.
A relative of the victims – reportedly four boys, two girls and three women – called the incident a massacre and said some were even burned alive.
Mexican Security Minister Alfonso Durazo said those killed could have been victims of mistaken identity, given the high number of violent confrontations among warring drug gangs in the area.
But the extended family of the deceased have often been in conflict with drug traffickers in Chihuahua and other relatives of the victims said the killers surely knew who they were targeting.
Those killed in Monday’s daytime attack were members of breakaway Mormon communities that settled in northern Mexico’s hills and plains decades ago.
The victims were from the Mexican-American LeBaron, Langford, Miller and Johnson families.
In a text message to Reuters, Julian LeBaron wrote that several children who fled the attack were lost for hours in the countryside before being found.
He said it was unclear who carried out the attack.
“We don’t know why, though they had received indirect threats. We don’t know who did it,” he told Reuters.
A video posted on social media showed the charred and smoking remains of a vehicle riddled with bullet holes that was apparently carrying some of the victims on a dirt road when the attack occurred.
“This is for the record,” says a male voice speaking English in an American accent, off camera, choking with emotion.
“Nita and four of my grandchildren are burnt and shot up,” the man says, apparently referring to Rhonita LeBaron, one of the three women who died in the attack.
Reuters could not independently verify the video.
All of the dead were US citizens and most also held dual citizenship with Mexico. They were attacked while driving on backroads in a convoy of cars containing the women along with 14 children, he said. Some were headed for Tucson airport to collect relatives.
The charred bodies of a woman and four children were found in a burnt Chevrolet Tahoe near the village of San Miguelito, while the corpses of a woman and two children were recovered in a white Suburban about 18 kilometres away, the statement said.
The body of the third woman was found about 15 metres (50 feet) from a Suburban near the Sonora-Chihuahua border.
The victims were members of the small community of La Mora, Sonora, set up decades ago by ‘pioneers’ who broke away from the Mormon church, said Lafe Langford, whose aunt and cousin were killed in the attack.
“They were targeted and they were killed on purpose,” said Langford.
Northwestern Mexico has been home to small Mormon and Mormon-linked communities of US origin since the late 19th century.
The early Mormon settlers in Mexico fled the threat of arrest in the US for practicing polygamy. The practice is observed by a shrinking number of Mormons in Mexico.