State Department issues travel advisory for Mexico

The State Department issued a travel advisory this week warning American citizens headed to Mexico to use caution in several states.

The advisory comes the same week eight bodies were discovered in Cancun, a tourist hub, but the travel warning does not refer to the Quintana Roo/Cancun area.

Mexican prosecutors say they have found eight bodies on the streets of Cancun. None of the killings occurred in the city’s beach-side hotel zone.

The travel advisory refers to activity in the Mexican states Colima, Guerreo, Michoacan, Sinaloa and Tamaulipas.

The warning amplifies recent alarms about travel to Mexico. An investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which is part of the USA TODAY Network, has found more than 170 travelers have become sick, seriously injured — and in some cases have died — after drinking small and moderate amounts of alcohol at all-inclusive resorts throughout the country.

Travelers reported being sexually assaulted, beaten, robbed, taken to jail and mistreated at local hospitals.

The Journal Sentinel investigation exposed how travelers encounter indifferent — at times hostile — resort workers, police and hospital staff.

While the State Department, members of Congress — both Republican and Democrat — as well as travel websites and Mexican authorities vow they are making changes and doing what they can to ensure the safety of travelers, their slow, bureaucratic efforts have yet to prevent the harms, the Journal Sentinel found. The newspaper received reports from tourists who had traveled as recently as July.