According to CNN, the victims – three women, four small children, and two infants were – “all shot while in vehicles while driving,” said family member Alex LeBaron from Mexico. He added that several children survived the attack.
It is believed the three vehicles were traveling between the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua when they were ambushed by criminal groups Monday evening, Mexican authorities said. It is alleged the criminal group was one of Mexico’s many cartels.
“Women and children were massacred, burned alive,” LeBaron said. “Mothers were screaming for the fire to stop.” LeBaron is afraid the death toll could rise. “When you know there are babies tied in a car seat that is burning because of some twisted evil that’s in this world,” LeBarón said in a telephone interview with the Salt Lake Tribune. “it’s just hard to cope with that.”
According to the New York Times, there is a theory that members of a cartel mistook the family members for rivals, but nothing has been confirmed. The family apparently also has a history of speaking out against criminal groups in the region.
An army to defeat an army
After hearing about the senseless killings of the families, who carried dual-citizenship in the U.S. and Mexico, Trump called for “an army to defeat an army.”
“This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth. We merely await a call from your great new president!” Trump wrote on Twitter.
However, at his daily morning press conference on Tuesday, President López Obrador, who was inaugurated last December, declined the offer, saying, “It’s not in agreement with our convictions. The worst thing is war.”
López Obrador has already faced mounting criticism over his decision to release Ovidio Guzmán, the son of drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, after cartel members took over the northern city of Culiacán, killing 13 people, on Oct. 17.
Trump’s offer of military aid doesn’t sit well with Mexico – given the history of U.S. intervention in the country, and it seems that Lopez Obrador’s campaign promise to stop the drug wars in the country is not coming to fruition, either.
This new assault, however, could “become a galvanizing moment for citizens fed up with the endless bloodshed and the government’s inability to do much about it,” per the New York Times.
It should be noted that the country has not had a successful “coup d’etat” (military takeover) since its 1910–1921 revolution.
