Human rights activist killed in Mexico

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Once again, there is grim news from Mexico, apparently linked to the nation’s drug wars. A leading human rights activist in the northern Mexican state of Sinaloa has been killed in an execution-style slaying.

Ricardo Murillo Monge of the Sinaloa Civic Front was found dead in the passenger seat of a car in the city of Culiacan. He founded the group with his sister Mercedes in 1993. Among many other causes, Murillo Monge took up cases of alleged police and army abuse, including the case of three women and two youths killed by soldiers when their family car approached an army checkpoint in June.

Murillo Monge’s is one of a series of killings recently, including that of an official of the Federal Investigative Agency (Mexico’s equivalent of the FBI) in the border city of Mexicali this week. According to the newspaper El Universal, the shooting death of Jorge Rodríguez Mundo was just one of 15 suspected drug-related killings on Wednesday.

The continuing violence appears to contradict reports that the country’s two leading drug-trafficking groups have reached a tentative agreement to divvy up the trade in illicit drugs.

Posted by Héctor Tobar in Mexico City