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Gunmen shot dead the mayor of the Mexican state of Guerrero, his father and 16 other people yesterday, the Associated Press reported, citing local authorities.

Prosecutor General Sandra Luz Valdovinos told Milenio TV last night that 18 people were killed and two wounded in the town of San Miguel Totolapan.

Among those killed were the city's mayor, Conrado Mendoza, and his father, a former city mayor.

Photos from the scene show a bullet-riddled facade of the town hall.

While attacks on government officials are not uncommon in Mexico, they come at a time when President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's security strategy is under intense criticism and debate.

He placed the overwhelming responsibility on the armed forces, rather than the police, for curbing the North American nation's persistently high levels of violence.

San Miguel Totolapan is a remote town in the Terra Caliente region, one of the most conflict-ridden in Mexico, known for many drug-trafficking gangs.

In 2016, the residents of Totolapan, desperate and angry at the frequent kidnappings of people carried out by the local criminal gang "Los Tequileros", in turn kidnapped the mother of the leader of the gang to force the release of their fellow citizens, recalls the AP.

10 dead in bar shooting in Mexico

Meanwhile, Uriel Carmona, the attorney general of Morelos state, said that in the state capital of Cuernavaca, two gunmen on a motorcycle fatally shot the state's deputy governor, Gabriela Marin, as she got out of her car.

This week, Mexico's Congress is debating the president's proposal to extend the military's duties in the fight against organized crime until 2028. Last month, lawmakers approved Lopez Obrador's proposal to transfer the National Guard, which is supposed to be made up of civilians.

#Update- At least 18 people were killed, including the municipal president Conrado Mendoza Alameda and his father, by a group of armed men who entered that town open fire at San Miguel #Totolapan City Hall in southwest #Mexico. #Shooting #Mayor # gunviolence #Viral #BreakingNews pic.twitter.com/xeaA9XSrT7

— Top Disaster (@Top_Disaster) October 6, 2022

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