Mexico has been hit by another wave of violence against local officials, with a second mayor and her husband fatally shot in western Mexico on Tuesday. This tragedy comes just two days after another mayor was murdered in the southern part of the country.
Martha Laura Mendoza, Mayor of Tepalcatepec in the state of Michoacán, was killed shortly after Lilia Garcia, Mayor of San Mateo Piñas in Oaxaca state, was executed by five armed individuals in her office on Sunday.
Details of the Latest Attack and Ongoing Investigations
“I have received confirmation that the mayor of Tepalcatepec has just been killed,” Guillermo Valencia, her predecessor from the opposition PRI party, posted on X. Both Mayor Mendoza and her husband were confirmed dead by local journalists.
Martha Laura Mendoza was a member of the ruling MORENA party. On her X account, she described herself as a “social activist, mother, wife, and president of the Tepalcatepec city council.”
Michoacán, a state covering 22,000 square kilometers, is Mexico’s largest avocado producer, in a country that is the world’s leading producer of the fruit. The Nueva Familia Michoacana cartel is one of eight Latin American criminal organizations that the Trump administration blacklisted as foreign “terrorist” organizations in February.
Regarding the killing of Lilia Garcia, prosecutors are investigating “five possible motives,” authorities stated at a press conference on Monday. These include allegations of embezzlement of 120,000 pesos (approximately $6,000) from the community treasury, forgery of the mayor’s signature, and “timber trafficking in the area.”
Wider Pattern of Violence
These recent killings are part of a disturbing trend in Mexico, where dozens of elected public or local officials have been murdered in organized crime attacks in recent years. This wave of violence also struck the Mexican capital a month ago, with the roadside assassination of two close associates of Mayor Clara Brugada.
