A mayoral candidate and three of her supporters were shot dead on Sunday at a campaign event in the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz, the state governor said, marking the latest politician to be targeted by violence in the country.
Yesenia Lara, the candidate of President Claudia Sheinbaum's Morena party for mayor of Texistepec, was identified by local media as the slain politician.
Footage posted online during a Facebook Live broadcast by the politician shows people running and screaming as gunshots ring out at a procession of motorcycles and supporters carrying Morena flags.
Other images shared online appeared to show bodies in the street.
"We will find those responsible for the cowardly murder of the Morena candidate and supporters in Texistepec; four dead and three wounded," Veracruz state governor Rocio Nahle posted on social media.
"No position or office is worth a person's life."
The state's attorney general office confirmed on social media that it had launched an investigation.
Lara had posted several images on Facebook, showing her campaigning throughout the region.
Yesenia Lara, Moreno party candidate for mayor of Texistepec, Mexico.
Facebook / Yesenia Lara Gutiérrez
"The strength of our youth is the vitality that motivates me to keep walking day by day," she wrote just hours before the shooting.
Criminal violence has seen around 480,000 people murdered in Mexico since 2006.
Attacks on politicians are common in Mexico, particularly at local level, due to violence linked to cartels, corruption and the multibillion-dollar narcotics trade.
The killing comes two days after Cecilia Ruvalcaba, a councilmember in Mexico's western state of Jalisco, was gunned down in a hospital. Last month, Jose Luis Pereira, a senior member of the Teocaltiche city government, was shot and killed while dining at a restaurant in Jalisco.
In December 2024, a Mexican congressman who was a member of the ruling coalition was shot dead in Veracruz.
About two months before that, a mayor was murdered and decapitated in the southern state of Guerrero. The next month, a former prosecutor and local police official was arrested in connection with the grisly killing.
In June 2024, a mayor was killed in southern Mexico, less than a week after another politician was assassinated in the same region.
That same month, a local councilwoman was gunned down as she was leaving her home in Guerrero. Her murder came a few days after the mayor of a town in western Mexico and her bodyguard were killed outside of a gym, just hours after Sheinbaum's presidential win.
In March 2024, a mayor was shot dead while at a restaurant with his 14-year-old son in Morelia, the capital of western Michoacan state. His son survived.