Armed men kill 12 people in a bar in Mexico

() — Mexican authorities are searching for the gunmen who killed at least 12 people and wounded three more after opening fire at a bar in central Mexico on Saturday night.

Shots were reported at the bar in the city of Irapuato, in the state of Guanajuato, around 8:00 pm local time on Saturday, the city’s Secretary of Citizen Security said in a statement.

Paramedics confirmed the deaths of six men and six women after arriving at the scene, according to the statement. It is unknown who the victims are and how many armed men were involved in the shooting.

There is a search operation for the attackers with the support of the Guanajuato Public Security Secretariat, as well as the state attorney general’s office, the National Defense Secretariat and the National Guard.

This is the second mass shooting in less than a month in the state of Guanajuato, which has been convulsed in recent years by brutal turf wars between rival drug gangs, according to Reuters.

The state is a major manufacturing hub and production site for many of the world’s leading automakers.

It is attractive to drug cartels for the same reason it is to automakers: road and rail networks that lead directly to the US border.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has struggled to deal with gang violence since taking office in late 2018, according to Reuters.

Although the number of homicides has decreased slightly this year, López Obrador’s term will be the bloodiest in recent history.

Reuters contributed to this report