Mexico City - A group of armed men blew up an ambulance
Friday, apparently with a grenade, to kill a rival who was being
transferred from one hospital to another, officials said.
The state attorney general's office in the western Mexican state
of Michoacan said the ambulance had just left the Hospital Civil in
the town of Uruapan to take a 24 year-old-man to a hospital in the
Michoacan capital Morelia, about 300 kilometres west of Mexico City.
The man had been injured Sunday in a shootout, allegedly with a
rival group.
The attack on the ambulance happened at around 2 am (0700 GMT)
Friday. The attackers, travelling in two vans, blocked passage and
forced two paramedics and a driver accompanying the injured man on
the ambulance to leave the vehicle and get away from it, state
attorney spokesman Victor Arrendondo told the German Press Agency
dpa.
The paramedics and the driver who had been travelling on the
ambulance said that as they pulled away they heard shots and then
saw the ambulance catch fire. Investigators think that the unknown
attackers used a grenade before driving away.
The wife of the injured man - whose body was charred in the attack
- was also travelling on the ambulance, and the authorities did not
know whether she managed to escape or whether she was kidnapped by
the attackers.
Over 3,000 people have been killed since January in incidents
linked to organized crime. Last year the figure reached a record of
6,290 drug-related killings.
USA
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