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By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
Three men were shot to death and a two others, including a four year old child were wounded in an intergang shootout in western Durango state, according to Mexican news reports.
The incident took place early Saturday morning in the village of San Miguel de Cruces in San Dimas municipality. San Dimas is on the western border of Durango with Sinaloa state, about 25 kilometers north of Mexico Federal Highway 40.
The dead were identified as Ismael Pulid, 26, from San Dimas, and Javier Nunez Ortiz, 19, and Leonardo Rivas Sanchez, 23, both from the vilage of El Durazno in Tamazula municipality.
The wounded were identified as Victor Manuel Reyes Ayon, 25 and Herbando Reyes Meraz, 4, both from the village of Huachimetas de Abajo in San Dimas municipality.
Reports are an undisclosed number of armed suspects aboard two pickup trucks rolled up to the village and started shooting. The two wounded victims were apparently waiting for a bus bound for Durango city when the shooting took place.
San Dimas municipality has been a location of drug cartel violence including four incidents in just 2011 which killed 11 individuals who had run afoul of drug cartel operations in the area. Locations of the incidents in San Dimas municipality include the villages of El Zapote de Buena Vista, Flechas and El Muerto.
Drug cartels use indigent populations in what is colloquially known as the Golden triangle area of Mexico which include western Chihuahua and Durango states, treating them like serfs if they refuse to grow and manufacture drugs.
San Dimas is in the Mexican Sierras, some of the most rugged terrain in North America. Many municipalities in Durango are so remote it takes hours of travel by vehicle just to get a cell phone signal.
Three other individuals were found shot to death in western Durango state, including a former Durango ministerial agent.
- A former police agent with the Durango Fiscalia General Estatal (FGE) or Durango attorney general, was found shot to death along with another unidentified man. Enrique Diaz Reyes, 41 was found presumably in Durango city near the intersection of bulevars Domingo Arrieta and Durango. Enrique Diaz Reyes had been kidnapped in front of his wife and children last Wednesday. He was the former head of the Durango FGE anti-kidnapping unit. An apparent written confession and narcopintas, or blankets painted with messages were left at the scene, but their contents were not disclosed.
- A 29 year old man found dead along Mexico Federal Highway 40 Saturday has been identified as Alejandro Quinones Escobedo of Nuevo Pueblo municipality in western Durango. The victim was shot once in the chest and once in the stomach.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com