MEXICO ( Gunmen Attack Mayor of Santiago Amoltepec - The mayor was ambushed and shot )

Gunmen Attack Mayor in Southern Mexico
The mayor Luis Jimenez was ambushed by several armed subjects on Sunday night and is listed in serious condition with gunshot wounds, Milenio television reported

MEXICO CITY – The mayor of Santiago Amoltepec, a small town in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, was ambushed by gunmen and shot over the weekend, media reports said Monday.

Luis Jimenez is listed in serious condition with gunshot wounds, Milenio television reported.

The mayor was ambushed by several armed subjects on Sunday night.

Jimenez was attacked while driving on a rural road in Santiago Amoltepec.

The mayor had received death threats recently over a land dispute in the town, Milenio said.

Jimenez was airlifted to Oaxaca city, where he is being treated at a hospital for his wounds.

Oaxaca’s Sierra Sur mountains, where Santiago Amoltepec is located, have long been known for violent land disputes among its Indian communities.

In March 2009, Santiago Amoltepec and neighboring Textitlan signed a treaty ending a 20-year land dispute that claimed more than 200 lives.

The inhabitants of both communities depend on agriculture for their survival, a fact that fueled the quarrel over a parcel of 200 hectares (494 acres) located between the settlements.

More than half the residents of Santiago Amoltepec and Textitlan speak an indigenous language.

Most of Mexico’s roughly 11 million Indians – representing just over 10 percent of the country’s population – are concentrated in southern states such as Oaxaca, Veracruz, Chiapas and Guerrero.

Sixteen of Mexico’s 62 surviving indigenous languages are spoken in Oaxaca. EFE