Homicide rate for San Luis R.C. climbs in first quarter of 2021
SAN LUIS RIO COLORADO, Son. – This city has recorded 16 slayings in March in what has been a steadily increasing homicide rate during the first quarter of 2021.
The homicide tally for March follows eight slayings recorded in Febuary and three in January, according to the Sonora state Public Safety Ministry.
Authorities attribute most of the killings to feuding among rival drug cartels and other organized crime groups.
On Monday, municipal police reported recovering the bodies of four possible homicide victims in the San Luis Valley, southwest of the city. The discovery came one day after the bodies of two people who had been fatally shot were found in an abandoned vehicle in the same area.
The four bodies found about 7 a.m. Monday were at the side of the highway leading to Ejido Islita, a tiny farming community southwest of San Luis Rio Colorado.
Municipal police did not release the names nor genders of the four nor say whether the bodies showed signs of violence. Police however, said they were working with counterparts in Baja California to determine if any of the four were people previously reported abducted or “disappeared” in that state.
Tribuna de San Luis, a daily newspaper in San Luis Rio Colorado, quoted police sources as saying that three of the four may have been residents of the Mexicali Valley, in Baja California, and the fourth a resident of Islitas.
Nine people have been reported abducted in the Mexicali area in March alone, the most recent of whom was a youth reported kidnapped Sunday in Ejido Guadalupe Victoria, a farming community about 30 miles southwest of San Luis Rio Colorado, by hooded and armed men traveling in two vehicles.
On Sunday, the bodies of two people who had been fatally shot were found in an abandoned vehicle near Ejido Independencia, a farming community also located in the San Luis Valley. Their names were not released by police.
Both cases have been turned over to state police for investigation. No arrests had been made as of Monday.