The mayor of Bacanora, in the northern Mexican state of Sonora, Nora Alicia Biebrich, was the victim of an armed attack this Tuesday while traveling on a federal highway. In the incident, her son was killed, state authorities reported, who ruled out for now that it was a direct attack on the official or that it is linked to the recent wave of violence in the country. Sonora's Attorney General, Gustavo Rómulo Salas Chávez, confirmed the aggression occurred near kilometer 60 of the Hermosillo-Mazatlán highway, when the official and her son were traveling in a Jeep vehicle after leaving Hermosillo (Sonora) bound for Mazatlán (Sinaloa). According to initial investigations, the attack would have originated from a traffic incident when the Jeep attempted to overtake another car that did not allow it. Subsequently, that same vehicle caught up with them and opened fire on the Jeep, explained the prosecutor. Salas Chávez specified that the shots were concentrated on the front and the driver's door, which indicates that the aggression was directed at the driver of the vehicle and not at the mayor. “At the moment, we have no data that allows us to suppose that it was a direct attack against the mayor of Bacanora,” he stated. The mayor's son died from bullet wounds to the legs, presumably from bleeding, added the official. Meanwhile, he indicated that the mayor is “out of danger” and without gunshot wounds, although with some bruises derived from the traffic incident. The prosecutor stressed that for now there are no elements that allow us to suppose that it was a direct attack against the mayor or that the fact is related to the recent wave of violence recorded in the country, after the death of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias El Mencho, leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). Nora Alicia Biebrich Duarte has governed the municipality of Bacanora since September 2024 and her term is scheduled to end in 2027, for the Labor Party (PT), an ally of the ruling party. This armed aggression occurs in a climate of persistent violence against officials in Mexico. According to the organization Data Cívica in its study ‘Voting Among Bullets’, a report on aggressions to understand political-criminal violence in the country, “municipal power is the most vulnerable link in the face of the territorial control of organized crime” and almost 80% of the victims of political-criminal violence in Mexico are concentrated at this level.
