Gunmen stormed a hospital in Mexico on Monday, attacking a man suffering from a gunshot wound and killing him and two police officers, authorities said.

The attackers shot the man more than 10 times in the central town of Atlixco, then killed police who tried to stop them from escaping. secretariat of public security He said in the state of Puebla.

“The victim first entered the hospital on his own early Sunday morning due to a gunshot wound he received during a meeting,” Puebla security secretary Daniel Ivan Cruz said at a news conference. he said.

“In the early hours of Monday morning, the person was killed by several people who entered the hospital,” he said.

“After hearing the emergency call and arriving at the scene, the police came under fire and died at the scene,” he added.

The security secretariat said investigators were looking into whether the patient, who was about 30 years old, was involved in illegal activities.

A popular tourist destination, Atlixco welcomes thousands of visitors at this time of year for the Day of the Dead festival.

Puebla has been subjected to brutal violence before. Officials in the state in April seven bodies were found In a car left in the middle of traffic on a main highway, five people were decapitated and another was completely dismembered (each body has a message on it). Authorities say gunmen ‘executed’ in 2022 nine people In an attack on a house in Atlixco.

More than 450,000 people have been killed in Mexico since 2006 in a spiral of violence, most linked to drug trafficking and gangs.

Prosecutors said Monday that gunmen killed five members of the same family at a house in suburban Acapulco that was a former beachside playground for the rich and famous and is now blighted by criminal violence.

Two more people were injured in the attack in the southern state of Guerrero, where blood has been shed for years due to turf wars between drug cartels.

On Friday, a local leader of the Mexican folk saint cult “La Santa Muerte” shot dead at an altar to a skeletal figure. Two more people died and eight people were injured in the attack in Leon, Guanajuato state.