22 alleged gang members killed in Mexico gun battle

At least 22 alleged gang members have been killed in Mexico’s southeast in a clash with government soldiers.

According to Reuters, an Interior Ministry spokesman said the gun battle broke out in Tlatlaya on the southern fringes of the State of Mexico early on Monday morning.

Reports said that the incident happened after the suspected gang members opened fire on soldiers, which led to the minutes-long gun battle.

The Mexican government said that the firefight was one of the bloodiest ones since President Enrique Pena Nieto has taken office in 2012.

On Saturday, Mexican authorities arrested more than 100 people belonging to a suspected vigilante group for battling drug cartels in the violence-plagued Michoacan State.

Police detained the suspects including the head of a powerful anti-crime vigilante group, Jose Manuel Mireles, in the port city of Lazaro Cardenas on Friday, the federal government commissioner said.

On June 22, Mexican officials discovered a new mass grave containing over 40 bodies in the country’s Gulf Coast state of Veracruz, an area plagued by drug violence.

The murders are thought to be a result of gang fights in the region, which have worsened in recent years, given the huge amount of competition among human traffickers.

Official data shows that every month since President Pena Nieto took office in December 2012, an additional 1,000 people died in violence linked to drug cartels.

The Mexican president has pledged to get rid of gang violence that has claimed about 80,000 lives in Mexico since 2007.