In Mexico, new details are emerging about the massacre of the American-Mexican Mormon family in the northern state of Sonora. Three women and six children were killed when gunmen ambushed their SUVs as they traveled along the highway. Experts have determined that the ammunition used in the attack was manufactured in the United States by the American weapons manufacturer Remington. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has announced he’s impaneling an investigation.
López Obrador ran on a campaign promise of ending Mexico’s U.S.-backed drug war and improving security. But the homicide rate this year is on track to hit a record high — threatening public support for the president’s long-term strategy of reducing cartel violence through social and educational programs. This is Julián LeBarón, a member of the American-Mexican Mormon community.
Julián LeBarón: “The whole family wants to know exactly who the attackers were and why they did it. And we don’t want the government to manipulate the facts, and we want no lies. During yesterday morning’s media conference by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, they came out to say that the victims were in the middle of crossfire, but they don’t even have the facts of what happened. We, the family, arrived at the crime scene before members from Sonora’s public prosecutors arrived, who did not even show up, and public prosecutors from the state of Chihuahua, the same. We live in an area where criminals do as they wish and authorities don’t even defend women or children.”
About 100 people are murdered every day in Mexico. Six of the children wounded in the attack are recovering in a Tuscon hospital.