On Saturday, seven were killed, including a seven-year-old child, after gunmen stormed a resort in the small town of Cortazar, which is located in Guanajuato, a central state in Mexico.
Reuters reports an unidentified man said, "Heavily armed sicarios arrived and this is what happened." According to the Cambridge dictionary, sicario is Spanish for hitman or hired assassin.
The child along with three women and three men were killed and one other seriously injured in the attack in an area that has been beset by prolonged drug cartel violence according to the local security department in Cortazar. The cartels have been engaged in territorial battles in order to control the routes in the region that are used for drug trafficking.
Cortazar's security department said in a statement, "After the attack, (the attackers) fled, but not before causing damage to the resort store and taking the security cameras and the monitor."
Fox News reports that the incident happened at the La Palma resort near the swimming pool and those shot were vacationers.
Images and video were posted to social media of the attack and showed the dead bodies by a swimming pool.
"The victims of the Cortazar, Guanajuato massacre were families with children enjoying a day at a park. They were not rival cartel members, or engaging in a shootout. Just easy soft targets violently exploited to draw government attention to rival territory," wrote one user on Twitter.
The spa shot was also destroyed by the gunmen who also ran off with the resort's security cameras.
The victims have not been named and no arrests have yet been made.
Mexican police and soldiers have been searching for the assailants since the incident occurred.
According to CBS, Guanajuato is an industrial and agricultural hub but "The Jalisco New Generation drug cartel has been fighting with local criminal groups, including the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel, which is apparently backed by the Sinaloa cartel."
