The mayor of a town in western Mexico was killed on Monday, the regional government said, barely 24 hours after Claudia Sheinbaum was elected the Latin American country’s first woman president.
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The Michoacan state government condemned “the murder of the municipal president (mayor) of Cotija, Yolanda Sanchez Figueroa,” the regional interior ministry said in a post on the social media platform X.

The murder of the woman mayor comes after Sheinbaum’s landslide victory injected hope for change in a country riven by rampant gender-based violence.

Sanchez, who was elected mayor in the 2021 elections, was gunned down on a public road, according to local media.
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Authorities have not given details on the murder, but said a security operation had been launched to arrest the killers.

The politician was previously kidnapped in September last year while leaving a shopping mall in the city of Guadalajara in the state of Jalisco, which neighbours Michoacan.

Three days later, the federal government said she had been found alive.
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According to local media reports at the time, the kidnappers belonged to the powerful Jalisco Cartel – New Generation (CJNG), who allegedly threatened the mayor for opposing the criminal group’s takeover of her municipality’s police force.

Michoacan is renowned for its tourist destinations and a thriving agro-export industry, but is also one of the most violent states in the country due to the presence of extortion and drug trafficking gangs.
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