ECUANDUREO, Mexico — About 40 people were killed Friday in what authorities described as a fierce gunbattle between suspected drug traffickers and federal forces on a ranch in western Mexico, the deadliest such confrontation in recent memory.
Almost all the dead were suspected criminals, said a Federal Police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk with journalists. Unconfirmed reports said at least one police officer died.
Few details on the reported gunbattle had been released, but photographs from the scene show bodies, some with semi-automatic rifles and others without weapons, lying in fields, near farm equipment and on a blood-stained patio strewn with clothes, mattresses and sleeping bags.
Video obtained by The Associated Press showed federal police coming under fire and bodies strewn throughout a ranch, known as Rancho del Sol, according to a local police official in the town of Puerto de Vargas. The official wouldn’t give his full name to the AP but said his department received a report of the confrontation from fellow police in the neighboring town of Ecuandureo and was told to keep residents calm.
