Mayor reportedly beheaded days after taking office in Mexico amid surge in cartel violence

The mayor of a city in southern Mexico has been murdered less than a week after taking office, authorities said Sunday, the latest in a series of attacks on politicians in the violence-plagued Latin American country.

The killing of Chilpancingo mayor Alejandro Arcos “fills us with indignation,” Guerrero state governor Evelyn Salgado wrote on social media, without providing further details of the circumstances.

Local media reported that Arcos was decapitated, but there has been no official confirmation.

Reuters reported that photos circulating on WhatsApp showed a severed head on top of what appeared to be Arcos’ vehicle, but the news agency could not independently verify the photos’ authenticity.

Arcos was elected in June representing an opposition coalition that included the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which denounced his killing as a “cowardly crime” and called for justice.

“Enough of violence and impunity! The people of Guerrero do not deserve to live in fear,” it said on X.

His murder came days after the killing of another city official, Francisco Tapia, according to PRI president Alejandro Moreno.

“They had been in office for less than a week. Young and honest officials who sought progress for their community,” Moreno said on X.

Guerrero, one of Mexico’s poorest states, has endured years of violence linked to turf wars between cartels fighting for control of drug production and trafficking.

Last year, 1,890 murders were recorded in the state, which is home to the beachside resort city of Acapulco, a former playground of the rich and famous now blighted by crime. Guerrero is among six states in Mexico that the U.S. State Department advises Americans to completely avoid, citing crime and violence.

Across Mexico, more than 450,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands have gone missing in a spiral of violence since the government deployed the army to combat drug trafficking in 2006.

Politicians, particularly at the local level, frequently fall victim to bloodshed connected to corruption and the multibillion-dollar drugs trade.

Tackling the cartel violence that makes murder and kidnapping a daily occurrence in Mexico is among the major challenges facing Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s first woman president.

Sheinbaum, the former mayor of Mexico City who was sworn in on October 1, has pledged to stick to her predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” strategy of using social policy to tackle crime at its roots.

She is due to unveil her security plan on Tuesday.

At least 24 politicians were murdered during a particularly violent electoral process leading up to the June election that the key ruling party figure won by a landslide, according to official figures.

In June, at least three politicians in Guerrero were killed.  Acacio Flores, who represents Malinaltepec, was killed just days after the killing of Salvador Villalba Flores, another mayor from Guerrero state elected in June 2 polls. Earlier in the month, a local councilwoman was gunned down as she was leaving her home in Guerrero.

Her murder came a few days after the mayor of a town in western Mexico and her bodyguard were killed outside of a gym, just hours after Sheinbaum won the presidency.