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Gunmen opened fire at a cockfighting site in Mexico over the weekend, killing 20 people and wounding four others in an attack that may have been a clash between criminal gangs, authorities said on Monday.
The attack happened late Sunday near the town of Zinapecuaro in Mexico’s western state of Michoacan, state prosecutors said. Three of the dead were women.
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The gunmen appeared to have planned the attack, entering the venue in a stolen truck owned by a snack food company and using a bus to prevent those inside from escaping or calling for help.
Army officers and Michoacan state attorneys Monday inspect the “El Paraiso,” or paradise, cockfighting site in Zinapecuaro, Mexico. (AP Photo/Armando Solis)
“The snack food company’s truck arrived and several armed individuals in camouflage clothing got out,” prosecutors said in a statement. “At the same moment, a bus parked in front of the building was used as a blockade.”
Prosecutors said a vehicle that appeared to belong to a victim had stickers with a criminal gang’s logo on it, adding that drug cartels and other criminal gangs had been fighting in the area.
“There is evidence that the attack involved a confrontation between criminal groups,” the Federal Office for Public Security said in a statement. It said a team of federal investigators had been dispatched to the scene.
Soldiers patrol the “El Paraiso,” or Paradise, cockfighting site in Zinapecuaro, Mexico, Monday. (AP Photo/Armando Solis)
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Michoacan was the scene of a long-running turf war between local cartels and the Jalisco Cartel from the neighboring state of Jalisco. The fighting included the use of bomb-dropping drones, landmines and homemade armored cars.
Cockfighting, while illegal in many areas, remains a popular pastime in parts of Mexico, although the fights are usually clandestine.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.