Shootouts amid Easter processions

On Friday, dozens of Roman Catholic devotees dressed as ancient Romans and biblical figures fled a Good Friday procession in panic in the Mexican resort town of Acapulco after gunfire rang out over a nearby car robbery.

One of the robbers died from a heart attack during a shootout with police while an accomplice escaped, said the government of Guerrero , one of Mexico’s most violent states.

Minutes after the confrontation, another man in a home nearby was killed in what was reported to police as a subsequent slew of gunfire . No people in the procession were reported injured.

It should be noted that even though Guerrero is being monitored by 5,617 troops between military, marine, federal, state and ministerial police on the occasion of the holiday period which started on March 24 and will last until April 8 , crime has not decreased.

Surveillance was reinforced in Acapulco , Chilpancingo , Zihuatanejo , Chilapa , and Iguala , the most violent municipalities in the state.

Murder rates in Acapulco and the popular Los Cabos resort further north have soared in recent years as Mexico fights entrenched drug crime.

A shootout also interrupted a Good Friday procession in the violent northern city of Reynosa , Tamaulipas , and left one dead, local media reported.

As security measures, the staging of the Via Crucis was suspended in at least two churches in Reynosa.

sg