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11 Killed in Suspected Arson Attack on Northern Mexican Bar


A forensic technician works at a scene where a man threw a Molotov cocktail bomb at a bar after being kicked out, according police, in San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico July 22, 2023.
A forensic technician works at a scene where a man threw a Molotov cocktail bomb at a bar after being kicked out, according police, in San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico July 22, 2023.

Eleven people were killed in a suspected arson attack on a bar in the northern Mexican border city of San Luis Rio Colorado after an expelled patron allegedly set it ablaze with a Molotov cocktail, authorities in the state of Sonora said Saturday.

Sonora state prosecutors said preliminary findings showed the suspect was young, male and highly intoxicated at the time of the attack in the early hours of Saturday. He had reportedly been thrown out of the bar for being disrespectful to women there.

Exterior of bar hit by a Molotov cocktail bomb after a patron was kicked out for bad behavior, according to Sonora state authorities, in San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico July 22, 2023.
Exterior of bar hit by a Molotov cocktail bomb after a patron was kicked out for bad behavior, according to Sonora state authorities, in San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico July 22, 2023.

He then came back and threw a kind of Molotov cocktail at the doors of the bar, according to a statement from prosecutors in the state, which shares a long border with Arizona.

Four of the 11 dead were women, and four more people were being treated in hospital for their injuries, they added.

One of the women was a U.S. citizen, and another victim was only 17 years old, Gustavo Romulo Salas, the state attorney general, told a news conference.

Santos Gonzalez, the mayor of the city, said that the suspect, a man, had been arrested by police.

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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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