At least 25 killed in Mexico over bloody weekend

MEXICO CITY: At least 25 people were murdered in Mexico this weekend, according to officials and local media, including nine men who were executed at a house party in a suburb of the wealthy northern industrial city of Monterrey.

Masked gunmen burst into a home in San Nicholas de los Garza as a group watched a local soccer team play on television, according to state prosecutors. Seven were killed at the scene and two more died later at a hospital.

Mexico’s federal government called a news conference for later Sunday to detail security plans after murders climbed to a record high of more than 25,000 last year.

Rival drug gangs have increasingly splintered into smaller, more blood- thirsty groups following more than a decade of a militaryled campaign to battle the cartels.

Violence is a central issue ahead of the presidential election in July. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party is trailing in third place in recent polls.

There were a wave of attacks in night spots late Saturday and early Sunday. A group of armed men killed three people in a bar in the resort city of Cancun, local media reported.

A Chilean tourist was killed when gunman opened fire at a restaurant in the Pacific beach resort of Acapulco, and two more were killed in a bar in the capital of Veracruz state on the Gulf of Mexico when two men opened fire on employees and a band. — Reuters