MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AFP) — The mayor of a city in southern Mexico was murdered less than a week after taking office, authorities said, a crime condemned by President Claudia Sheinbaum on Monday as “deplorable.”

Local media reported that Chilpancingo mayor Alejandro Arcos was decapitated and his head left on the hood of a pick-up truck, but there was no official confirmation.

An investigation was under way to establish the motive and arrest those responsible, Sheinbaum told a press conference.

The killing was the latest in a series of deadly attacks on politicians in the violence-plagued Latin American country — and the second in recent days in Chilpancingo, capital of Guerrero state.

The murder “fills us with indignation,” Guerrero state governor Evelyn Salgado wrote on social media, without providing further details of the circumstances.

Arcos was elected in June representing an opposition coalition that included the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which denounced his killing as a “cowardly crime” and called for justice.

“Enough of violence and impunity! The people of Guerrero do not deserve to live in fear,” it said on social media platform X.

The murder came days after the killing of another city official, Francisco Tapia, according to PRI president Alejandro Moreno.

“They had been in office for less than a week. Young and honest officials who sought progress for their community,” Moreno said on X.

Mexican politicians, particularly at the local level, frequently fall victim to bloodshed connected to corruption and the multibillion-dollar drugs trade.

– Family pay tribute –
Hours before his death, Arcos had posted photos on social media of a visit to local communities affected by a recent hurricane.

In a message posted on Facebook after his death, Arcos’s family paid tribute to his “unwavering commitment to peace, unity and service to others.”

Guerrero, one of Mexico’s poorest states, has endured years of violence linked to turf wars between cartels fighting for control of drug production and trafficking.

Last year, 1,890 murders were recorded in the state, which is home to the beachside resort city of Acapulco, a former playground of the rich and famous now blighted by crime.

Across Mexico, more than 450,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands have gone missing in a spiral of violence since the government deployed the army to combat drug trafficking in 2006.

Tackling the cartel violence that makes murder and kidnapping a daily occurrence in Mexico is among the major challenges facing Sheinbaum, Mexico’s first woman president.

The former Mexico City mayor, who was sworn in on October 1, has pledged to stick to her predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” strategy of using social policy to tackle crime at its roots.

She is due to unveil her security plan on Tuesday.

“We´re going to work in some states in particular with a greater presence, intelligence and investigation, in coordination with the governors,” she said.

At least 24 politicians were murdered during a particularly violent electoral process leading up to the June election that the key ruling party figure won by a landslide, according to official figures.