The Cactus Trip Diaries

On this day, we drove along Carretera Federal 16 from Chihuahua to Yecova in Sonora, commenting that we were stopped at four army checkpoints that day. We were unaware at the time that two days earlier, another town along that road, that we had driven through, had been ‘held hostage’ by gunmen.

From the Latin American Herald Tribune:

‘MEXICO CITY – Dozens of organized crime gunmen stormed a small town in the northwestern Mexican state of Sonora, killing four people and setting a police headquarters ablaze, state Attorney General Abel Murrieta said.

The assailants burst into the town of Maycoba at around 6:00 p.m. Thursday and stayed about five hours, according to local residents.
Between 80 and 100 gunmen bearing rifles and with their faces covered entered the town on board about 15 late-model vehicles, Murrieta told a press conference on Friday.

Their first action was to open fire on the town’s police station and then set it on fire. The police in the small town were not at the station at the time of the attack and were therefore unharmed, the prosecutor said.

But the gunmen killed the father of the local police chief and three dead bodies were found a few kilometers from the town, two of whom have still not been identified. They also looted a store.

Prior to terrorizing the town, the group of gunmen had blockaded the nearby federal highway with two trucks.’