11 k!lled at Mexican football match

With few months to the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which Mexico will co-host with the United States and Canada in June, a de.adly attack at a community football game that left 11 people de.ad has reignited fears about security in one of the tournament’s host nations

The mvrder of 11 people at a football game has sparked deep anger in the central Mexican town of Loma de Flores, where sport is promoted as a way of keeping young people safe from drvg cartels.

A ‘caution’ tape surrounds the football field where at least 11 people were k!lled and 12 more wounded during an attack on the eve in Salamanca, Guanajuato state, Mexico, on January 26, 2026. Guanajuato state is a thriving industrial hub and home to several popular tourist destinations, but also remains the country’s de.adliest state due to gang turf wars, according to official homicide statistics.

“We no longer know where to find peace,” Norma Barron, one of the promoters of the league that was attacked on Sunday, told AFP.

An afternoon of football, thronged by families, was drawing to a close when armed men stormed the grounds near the city of Salamanca in Guanajuato state on Sunday.

The gunmen arrived in at least three vehicles, Barron told AFP.

A preliminary investigation pointed to a settling of scores between two powerful criminal gangs.

Barron, an activist with a collective that searches for tens of thousands of Mexicans who have vanished, many of them k!dnapped and k!lled by cartels, was in the southern state of Oaxaca at the time of the attack.

As soon as the shooting began, her adult son, who was at the game, called her, terrified.

“‘They’re attacking people, there are several de.ad, we’re taking cover,’” she cited him as saying in an interview at the football field, where the grass was still smeared with blood on Monday.

Local and federal authorities confirmed 11 de.aths in the latest massacre to send shock waves through violence-plagued Mexico, which will co-host this year’s football FIFA World Cup together with the United States and Canada.

A further 10 people sustained gvnshot wounds, including a woman and a minor.

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