Mexico, April 02: Gunmen have killed 15 people, including a ten-year-old child, in two separate attacks in the northern Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez, officials say.
In one incident, nine men and one woman died in a shootout in a restaurant near a US border town, Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for Chihuahua state prosecutor, said.
The shooting occurred overnight Thursday when 16 masked men barged into El Castillo restaurant, in El Paso, Texas, opening fire randomly on the crowd having their dinner.
Later, police on the scene found over 130 bullet casings of different calibers and have opened an investigation. The reason for the attack is not known, police said.
Several similar attacks have been reported in recent years inside restaurants in Ciudad Juarez.
In another incident early Friday, four men and a 10-year-old child were killed by a group of men armed with assault weapons in a nearby food stall, a local police officer said on condition of anonymity,
Ciudad Juarez is a much fought-over drug trafficking route into the United States. Some 3,100 people were killed there last year alone.
Drug gangs, particularly linked to the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels, are blamed for much of the violence in battles for control of lucrative drug trafficking routes into the United States.
—Agencies