PHOTO: Chilpancingo Mayor, Alejandro Arcos Catalán, decapitated head on top of his car after being beheaded by unknown Narco gang

Chilpancingo Mayor Alejandro Arcos appeared in local media on Thursday to face the murder of his general secretary at the city hall, Francisco Tapia, who had just been shot on a street in the city centre: “It is very painful, very regrettable. We demand justice so that this crime does not go unpunished.” His right-hand man had only been in office for three days, both having taken office on Monday as part of the new local PRI government. Three days later, it was Arcos himself who was murdered on Sunday. The capital of the state of Guerrero, one of the poorest and most forgotten in Mexico, deepens the spiral of violence and social decomposition that extends across large areas of the state , immersed in a thousand battles between criminal groups for control of the territory.

The murder of Arcos has been confirmed by Alejandro Moreno, the president of the PRI, and the state prosecutor’s office, without giving many more details. Local media reports suggest that the mayor was decapitated. According to the same sources, his head was found in the middle of the afternoon on the roof of a white van, with the rest of his body in the driver’s seat. Arcos had spent the morning visiting the neighborhoods most affected by the rains and floods that are wreaking havoc in much of the state.