SAA event in Guanajuato, Leon area, Mexico on Sun 9th June 2024

A baby and a toddler were among six members of the same family murdered in a central Mexican state plagued by cartel-related violence, a local official said Monday.

Authorities say armed attackers burst into a home in the city of Leon in Guanajuato on Sunday night and opened fire at the family.

"Unfortunately two children and four women died," state governor Diego Sinhue Rodriguez told reporters. The children were identified as an eight-month-old baby and a two-year-old boy.

Two men survived because they saw the attackers coming and hid on the roof, he said.

Guanajuato is one of Mexico's most violent states due to turf wars between rival cartels involved in drug trafficking, fuel theft and other crimes. In Guanajuato, with its population just over 6 million, more police were shot to death in 2023 - about 60 - than in all of the United States.

In April, a mayoral candidate was shot dead in the street in Guanajuato just as she began campaigning. In December, 11 people were killed and another dozen were wounded in an attack on a pre-Christmas party in Guanajuato. Just days before that, the bodies of five university students were found stuffed in a vehicle on a dirt road in the state.

For years, the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel has fought a bloody turf war with the Jalisco cartel for control of Guanajuato.

Mexico has recorded more than 450,000 murders since 2006, when the government deployed the military to fight drug trafficking, most of them blamed on criminal gangs.