Gunmen suspected of cartel in northern Mexico kill 3-year-old boy

MEXICO CITY – Gunmen suspected of a drug cartel opened fire on a car in northern Mexico on Monday, killing a 3-year-old boy and injuring the child’s parents, authorities said.

The father, who was driving in the town of Ciudad Obregon at the time of the attack, managed to get the car to hospital, where the baby was pronounced dead, prosecutors in the border state of Sonora said. The armed men escaped.

“It hurts us as a society when drug cartels kill children,” the state attorney’s office said in a statement.

Sonora has been rocked by gang violence, including the killings of Indigenous people.

In recent weeks, DNA tests on bone remains found near an apparent drug cartel encampment have confirmed that five of the remains belonged to some of the seven missing men from Mexico’s most persecuted indigenous group, the Yaquis. The Yaqui men were kidnapped in mid-July near Ciudad Obregon.

The state prosecutor’s office has suggested that the murder of leader Yaqui Tomás Rojo Valencia in May was also the work of drug cartels or allied local gangs.