Seven people were killed in a drive-by shooting on the weekend in the Oaxaca municipality of Santo Domingo Petapa, located in the northern part of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

Santo Domingo residents told the newspaper El Universal that they first heard volleys of shots around 11:00pm on Saturday night. About an hour and a half later, a group of masked men traveling on motorcycles and in pickup trucks started shooting at a group of young people who were having a party in the street.

At least four men and one woman died at the scene, while another man was transported to the hospital in Lagunas with injuries. After the shooting, the aggressors fled in their vehicles.

When municipal police arrived at the scene they secured a Jeep Cherokee with Veracruz plates and recovered several .45-caliber and 9-caliber shell casings.

The Oaxaca attorney general said there were a total of six victims but witnesses who spoke to El Universal said they had seen two bodies near the Calvario Chapel, bringing the death count to seven.

Not all the victims have been identified. One man’s body was removed from the scene by his family before authorities arrived.

Most of the victims lived and worked in Santo Domingo Petapa and were aged between 17 and 30.

The attack is the third mass shooting in the Isthmus region in recent weeks. On July 15, three people were killed in a Juchitán bar, while later that day four people were shot in a workshop in Salina Cruz.

So far this year there have been 144 murders in the Isthmus, of which 28 took place in July.

Source: El Universal (sp), NVI Noticias (sp)