At least nine members of an American Mormon community, including six children, are believed to have been massacred by gunmen as they travelled to a wedding in northern Mexico.
The victims, said to be dual US-Mexico citizens, were killed by drug cartel gangsters in the border state of Sonora, it was reported today.
Julian LeBaron said his cousin was attacked and shot in her car along with her four children in Rancho de la Mora, an area notorious for traffickers.
“It was a massacre,” Mr LeBaron told local radio. He said at least five other children, one of whom was shot and wounded, managed to escape and walk home.
One girl was reported missing after running into the woods to hide, he added. Pictures of children said to have been injured in the attack and in hospital were later posted on social media.
Mr LeBaron added: “We don’t know why, though they had received indirect threats. We don’t know who did it.”
A government source confirmed five members of the same family had died. The dead reportedly included Rhonita LeBaron and her four children — twin six-month old babies and two others aged eight and 10.
Other victims were named by relatives as Dawna Ray Langford, 43, and Christina Marie Langford, 31, as well as Dawna’s children, Trevor, 11, and Rogan, three.
Leah Staddon, who grew up in the same Mormon community of La Mora, said her brother found one of the bullet-riddled cars with charred bodies inside yesterday.
“It’s devastating,” Ms Staddon said. “It’s incomprehensible, the evil. I don’t understand how someone could do that.”
A video posted online showed the smouldering remains of an SUV, where some of the victim’s bodies were found. Two other vehicles were reportedly found several hours later, containing the bodies of two more women and two children.
Mexican soldiers were today searching for other members of the group still missing following the attack, which was a possible case of mistaken identity. It is believed they were travelling in a convoy to another Mormon community in the neighbouring state of Chihuahua.
The Department of Security and Citizens’ Protection said security forces including the National Guard, army and state police had been deployed in the area following “the reports about disappearance and aggression against several people”.
La Mora is a decades-old settlement in Sonora state founded as part of an offshoot of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
It would not be the first time that members of the break-away church had been attacked.
In 2009, Benjamin LeBaron, an anti-crime activist who was related to those killed in yesterday’s attack, was murdered in Chihuahua.
