MEXICO CITY, Mexico: An angry mob in Mexico lynched an eight-year-old girl’s alleged killer, a woman, in a popular tourist town in southern part of the country that has been plagued by organized crime.
Residents on Thursday blocked one of the main streets of Taxco, a town in the state of Guerrero, southwest of Mexico City famed for its silver jewelry workshops and Spanish colonial architecture, after people spotted the child’s body on a highway.
The state prosecutor’s office said that it was treating the minor’s death as a suspected femicide (hate crime) and that the lynching as a qualified murder.
Mexican media, quoting a relative, reported that the girl’s family had received anonymous telephone calls demanding a ransom after she disappeared on Wednesday.
Earlier, a security camera footage showed the suspects allegedly putting a black bag in a car’s trunk, prompting suspicions that it contained the body of the girl.
In a subsequent development, an angry mob gathered outside a house where the woman and two men were located, demanding justice.
The crowd dragged out the suspects and beat them with sticks with no arrest warrants issued.
The woman died and the two men were shifted to a town’s hospital.
In January, the United States banned government officials from visiting the city, about 170 kilometers from Mexico City, after a spike in crime there.
Kidnapping and murder are common in Mexico, but the most common victims are adult men, which makes the girl’s death particularly shocking.
Lynching of suspected criminals occur regularly, and experts attribute this to a widespread perception of impunity in the crime-ridden country.
