Eleven people were killed and four injured in a suspected arson attack at a bar in the northern border city of San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora, on Saturday morning, Mexican authorities said, as the country continues to struggle with violent crime.
The authorities said a young, intoxicated man had thrown a Molotov cocktail at the club, Beer House, at around 1:33 a.m. after being kicked out earlier that night. Witnesses said he had been harassing women in the bar, leading to his expulsion, according to the Sonora state attorney general’s office.
The suspect had yet to be either identified or apprehended, the attorney general said. Prosecutors did not say whether they believed the incident was linked to organized crime.
Some of the victims were rushed across the border for treatment in the United States, while others were being treated in local hospitals, prosecutors said.
Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, rose to power in 2018 vowing to change the country’s approach to cracking down on crime. Four years later, however, criminal organizations have only become more entrenched, although the country saw a slight dip in homicides last year.
In 2019, a deadly arson attack on a club — allegedly by cartel members — left over 30 dead in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, in southern Mexico. Armed assailants sealed off the exits to the club, trapping the patrons inside.
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