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Five dead in election-related attack in Mexico

Gunmen ambushed and killed five people helping to organize elections in southern Mexico, prosecutors said Sunday, part of a wave of violence linked to the polls.

A community policing member casts his vote at a polling station in Nahuat community of Ayahualtempa, Guerrero state, Mexico, on June 6, 2021. Mexicans began voting Sunday in elections seen as pivotal to President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s promised “transformation” of a country shaken by the coronavirus pandemic, a deep recession and drug-related violence. PEDRO PARDO / AFP

Gunmen ambushed and killed five people helping to organize elections in southern Mexico, prosecutors said Sunday, part of a wave of violence linked to the polls.

The attack happened on Saturday when electoral authorities were delivering ballot boxes and other voting materials to a community in the Pueblo Nuevo Solistahuacan municipality in the state of Chiapas.

Armed individuals arrived at the scene and attacked poll organizers, wounding one person, the state prosecutor’s office reported.

Residents tried to take the injured man to a medical center, but on the way they were intercepted by an armed group that forced their pick-up truck off the road.

The attackers approached the vehicle and shot the five occupants, prosecutors said.

A manhunt was launched for the perpetrators as well as an investigation into their motive.

The legislative and local polls have been overshadowed by political bloodshed that has seen more than 90 politicians murdered since the electoral process began in September.

The government says most of the killings are linked to criminal groups seeking to increase their political influence.

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