Medical personnel remove the body of a victim killed in drug violence in Monterrey, Mexico. (File photo)<\/p>\n
Nine people have been killed and six others injured in a series of gang-related shootings in three Mexican cities over the weekend, officials say.\n<\/p>\n
In the early hours of Sunday, gunmen killed two men and wounded two others among a group standing outside a bar in the northern industrial area of Monterrey, police said.\n<\/p>\n
The incident came three days after attackers killed four people and wounded two others at a bar in a nearby suburb of Monterrey. Authorities said both events were similar in that the assailants arrived in taxis.\n<\/p>\n
In a separate incident on Saturday night, a group of armed men on motorcycles killed three young men and a 22-year-old woman and injured four others after opening fire at a bar in the resort city of Cuernavaca, the Morelos State prosecutor’s office said.\n<\/p>\n
In a final incident on Saturday afternoon, gunmen opened fire outside a convenience store and killed three people in the northern city of Fresnillo. Federal and local police launched a wide search for the escaped criminals in the city known as a main drug trafficking route.\n<\/p>\n
This is while, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said there was a significant drop in drug-related killings, particularly in Monterrey and Torreon, during his first state-of-the-nation address earlier this month.\n<\/p>\n
Since 2010, the Zetas and the Gulf cartels have been involved in ongoing drug-related battles in the Mexican cities of Monterrey and Fresnillo. The Beltran Leyva cartel has also posed major problems for vacationers and US retirees who frequent the city of Cuernavaca.\n<\/p>\n
Official figures show that since Nieto took office, about 1,000 people have died each month in drug-related violence and the army is still fighting cartels across large parts of the country.\n<\/p>\n
Nearly 80,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since former President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against Mexico™s drug cartels in December 2006.\n<\/p>\n
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