At least two killed, two wounded in confrontations near San Luis R.C.

At least two people were slain and two others wounded, one of them a 7-year-old boy, this week in armed confrontations in rural communities west of San Luis Rio Colorado, Son., that are believed related to two carjackings that occurred later on highways near the city.

The killing of a third person, a man whose body was found on a downtown street in San Luis Rio Colorado, may also be related to the incidents in Baja California’s Mexicali Valley.

Details were sketchy, but the confrontation occurred in the early morning hours Tuesday in the Colima and Chiapa ejidos, tiny agricultural settlements about 25 miles west of San Luis Rio Colorado in neighboring Baja California, as gunmen arrived in multiple vehicles.

“It was an armed group of 10 vehicles, all white in color,” said Pedro Ariel Mendivil, a federal prosecutor in Mexicali, in a news conference carried by Facebook. “(The gunmen) wore tactical clothing and face coverings. We think they arrived from a plaza outside our region and state.”

“Plaza” is a term for a geographical area in Mexico that is controlled by a criminal organization.

Two adults were slain,

a minor was wounded by gunfire and three people were abducted by the armed group, Mendivil said.

Those involved in the incidents are believed to have fled to Sonora and to have committed two carjackings reported later Tuesday to municipal police in San Luis Rio Colorado.

In one instance, travelers reported they were forced at gunpoint from vehicles about 120 miles east of San Luis Rio Colorado on Highway 2 leading to Sonoyta, a Sonora border community

across from Lukeville, municipal police said.

Also reported to police were carjackings on the toll road between San Luis Rio Colorado and El Golfo de Santa Clara.

Police did not disclose how many vehicles were taken at gunpoint but said three of the vehicles were later found.

“The events could have been related to the armed confrontations that occurred in the Mexicali Valley and ended in Sonora,” municipal police said in a bulletin.

Police said the body of an unidentified man was found about 4 a.m. Tuesday on a sidewalk along Obregon

Avenue, between 2nd and 3rd streets in San Luis Rio Colorado, a short distance from the border. The victim’s head was bloodied, police said.

Police said the man’s death could be related to incidents in Baja California but offered few other details. Sonora state police have taken over investigation of the case.

Meanwhile early Tuesday morning, an ambulance brought the 7-yearold boy and a 24-year-old woman from the Baja California communities to San Luis Rio Colorado for treatment of bullet wounds police said occurred in the confrontations.