Authorities believe residents of a remote community in the mountains of southern Mexico’s Oaxaca state beat five people to death and burned their bodies, the state prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday.
Oaxaca state authorities and the National Guard arrived in the community of Llano Amarillo in Santa Maria Texcatitlan on Tuesday, searching for five missing individuals. They discovered a burned-out vehicle containing the remains of five people, according to a statement from the Oaxaca state prosecutor’s office.
Officials believe the killings occurred on Monday, but forensic investigators were still working to identify the remains.
Preliminary information suggests that the five victims had arrived in the mountain community—located about 125 miles (200 km) from the state capital—on Monday to collect on a high-interest loan from a woman, the prosecutor’s office reported.
Such vigilante killings occasionally occur in Mexico, particularly in remote areas with limited government presence. In March, a mob killed and burned a man who worked as a clown after accusing him of child abuse in another Oaxacan town. Last year, a mob killed a woman accused of being involved in the kidnapping and killing of a girl in Taxco, Guerrero.
A 2019 report from the governmental National Human Rights Commission—the most recent available—described these killings as the most serious expression of public distrust toward authorities and the widespread impunity in the country. The report recorded 271 vigilante killings in 2018 alone.
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