CNN —
Mexican authorities are searching for gunmen who killed at least 12 people and injured three others at a bar in central Mexico on Saturday night.
Gunshots were reported from the bar in the city of Irapuato, in the central state of Guanajuato, around 8 p.m. local time on Saturday, the city’s Citizen Security Secretary said in a statement.
Paramedics confirmed the deaths of six men and six women after arriving at the scene, the statement said. It is unclear who the victims are and how many perpetrators were involved in the shooting.
A search operation for the attackers is underway with the support of the Guanajuato Minister of Public Safety, the State Attorney General’s Office, the Secretary of Defense and the National Guard.
This is the second mass shooting in less than a month in Guanajuato state, which has been rocked by brutal turf wars between rival drug gangs in recent years, according to Portal.
The state is a major manufacturing base and manufacturing base for many of the world’s top automobile manufacturers.
It’s attractive to drug cartels for the same reason it’s attractive to automakers: road and rail networks that lead directly to the US border.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has struggled with combating gang violence since taking office in late 2018, according to Portal.
Although the number of homicides has fallen slightly this year, Lopez Obrador’s tenure will be the bloodiest in recent history.