Attack occurred late Sunday in a low-income section relatively far from the beachside tourist zone, police said

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Seven men have been killed in a shooting attack at a bar in Mexico’s Caribbean coast resort city of Playa del Carmen, authorities said on Monday.

Cancún: from tourist beach paradise to hotbed of Mexico's drug violence Read more

State and local police said the attack occurred late Sunday at the Las Virginias bar in a low-income section relatively far from the beachside tourist zone. Six men were found shot to death in the bar, and another died at a local hospital.

One man was wounded but survived the attack. He told police he was drinking beer with friends when gunshots broke out. The attackers have not yet been identified.

Playa del Carmen, located on the coast facing the island of Cozumel, is Mexico’s leading cruise ship destination. Once a quiet fishing and ferry town, it has grown exponentially in the last two decades, with lower-income neighborhoods springing up on the inland side of the coastal highway.

Quick guide Mexico's war on drugs Show Hide Why did Mexico launch its war on drugs? On 10 December 2006, Felipe Calderón launched Mexico’s war on drugs by sending 6,500 troops into his home state of Michoacán, where rival cartels were engaged in tit-for-tat massacres. Calderón declared war eight days after taking power – a move widely seen as an attempt to boost his own legitimacy after a bitterly contested election victory. Within two months, around 20,000 troops were involved in operations. What has the war cost so far? The US has donated at least $1.5bn through the Merida Initiative since 2008, while Mexico spent at least $54bn on security and defence between 2007 and 2016. Critics say that this influx of cash has helped create an opaque security industry open to corruption.



But the biggest costs have been human: since 2007, over 250,000 people have been murdered, more than 40,000 reported as disappeared and 26,000 unidentified bodies in morgues across the country. Human rights groups have also detailed a vast rise in human rights abuses including torture, extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances by state security forces.



Peña Nieto claimed to have killed or detained 110 of 122 of his government's most wanted narcos. But his biggest victory – and most embarrassing blunder – was the recapture, escape, another recapture and extradition of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, leader of the Sinaloa cartel.

Mexico’s decade-long war on drugs would never have been possible without the injection of American cash and military cooperation under the Merida Initiative. The funds have continued to flow despite indisputable evidence of human rights violations.



Under new president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, murder rates are up and a new security force, the Civil Guard, is being deployed onto the streets despite campaign promises to end the drug war. What has been achieved? Improved collaboration between the US and Mexico has resulted in numerous high-profile arrests and drug busts. Officials say 25 of the 37 drug traffickers on Calderón’s most-wanted list have been jailed, extradited to the US or killed, although not all of these actions have been independently corroborated. The biggest victory – and most embarrassing blunder – under Peña Nieto’s leadership was the recapture, escape and another recapture of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, leader of the Sinaloa cartel. While the crackdown and capture of kingpins has won praise from the media and US, it has done little to reduce the violence. Photograph: Pedro Pardo/AFP

The resort is midway between Cancún, to the north, and Tulum, to the south, in the coastal state of Quintana Roo, which has seen homicides more than double in the past year, with 688 killings in the first 11 months of 2018, compared to 322 in the same period of 2017.

At that rate, Quintana Roo could end 2018 with a homicide rate of about 50 for every 100,000, on a par with El Salvador.

The Caribbean coast – especially Cancún and the area south known as the Riviera Maya – had long been largely spared the drug violence affecting other areas, but that no longer appears to be the case. Local sources report that the feared Jalisco New Generation cartel has moved into the region, disputing control with local gangs.

In September, two Mexican marines were found stabbed to death in Cancún. In a single day in August, police found eight bodies strewn on the streets of Cancún.

In January 2017, gunmen attacked the state prosecutors’ office in Cancun, killing four people. A day before that, a shooting at the BPM electronic music festival in Playa del Carmen left three foreigners and two Mexicans dead.

The US embassy in Mexico issued a brief travel warning for Playa del Carmen in March. A February 2018 blast on a ferry apparently caused by an explosive device injured 26 people, including several American citizens.

That has sparked fears that the Caribbean resorts could come to resemble the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco. The bloody violence in Acapulco that flared in 2006 eventually earned it a level-four “do not travel” warning from the US Department of State.

Still, violence in Playa del Carmen is still far from Acapulco levels. In 2017, Acapulco had a homicide rate of 103 for every 100,000 inhabitants, one of the highest in Mexico and the world.