Ten youth killed in Mexico

MEXICO CITY - Ten youth were killed in the northern Mexican state of Durango, reportedly for refusing to stop their vehicle, officials said Monday.

The Durango attorney general’s office said the youth, aged 8-21 years and who came from the municipality of El Aval, travelled to the town of Pueblo Nuevo Sunday, to claim payment of a government subsidy. They were killed on a mountain road about 200 km south of the state capital.

Locals told police that attackers regularly set up checkpoints to blackmail drivers. This time, they fired machine guns and lobbed grenades at the vehicle, leaving no survivors in the vehicle.

A report in the daily La Jornada, citing national defence statistics, said Sunday that 1,326 children and teenagers have been killed in Mexico since December 2006, from a total of over 17,000 dead in incidents linked to organised crime.