Four women waitresses at a bar in Ciudad Juarez, northern Mexico, were killed on Tuesday by two unknown gunmen, the prosecutor's office said.
Juarez, on the border with the United States in the state of Chihuahua, became famous in the 1990s because of a wave of violence that has claimed the lives of thousands of people, especially women.
According to the state prosecutor, the two gunmen entered the bar Manital in the early hours of Tuesday morning and each of them killed two waitresses by shooting them in the head. No spectators were injured.
The perpetrators of the four murders then escaped "in a vehicle in which a driver and another gunman were waiting for them", according to the prosecutor in Chihuahua.
Sources close to the prosecution noted that many of the murder cases of women in Juarez are linked to clearing accounts between organized crime gangs, so few of these homicides are classified as female homicides by the judicial authorities.
Across Mexico from January to September, 726 women were murdered by authorities who are being treated as possible murders. More than 50.000 complaints were lodged by women about bodily harm inflicted on them during the same period.
According to official figures, the wave of female homicides in Mexico continues, with an average of ten murders of women being committed daily. For the most part, these killings go unpunished.
The countless murders of women committed in the 90s in Juarez led the Mexican authorities to formally recognize in 2007 the legal concepts of feminicide and gender-based violence, which are currently accepted by a total of 15 Latin American countries.
Source: RES - EIA