11 people die in mass shootings in a cartel-plagued part of Mexico amid a wave of mass killings

Eleven people were killed in a mass shooting in a small town in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas on Tuesday, prosecutors said. This is at least the fourth mass murder in the district in just one week.

The office said the shooting took place in the municipality of Chicomuselo, an area known as a trafficking route for migrants and drug smuggling that has been hit by cartel battles in recent months.

Security forces launched patrols in the region near the border with Guatemala to find the perpetrators, officials said.

The community – and the remote hamlet of Morelia where the killings occurred – is in a sparsely populated area near Mexico's border with Guatemala.

There were clashes between drug cartels in the area as recently as Monday, but at least some of the victims of Tuesday's shootings appeared to be ordinary residents of the city.

Chiapas attracts tourists with its lush jungle, indigenous communities and ancient Mayan ruins.

But the border area has been plagued by violence as a rival Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartels Fight for territory. Just last month, Masked men stopped a vehicle She carried Mexico's leading presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum as she traveled between campaign stops to ask her to address violence in Chiapas if she wins the June 2 election.

Thousands of people have been displaced as cartels work to control migrant, drug and weapons smuggling routes and forcibly recruit locals.

The bloodshed in Chiapas marks at least the fourth mass killing in Mexico in about a week. officials said eight people died on a weekend in which there was shooting “in the middle of the city” in the Mexican state of Morelos, bordering Mexico City. Last Wednesday, nine bodies were found in a northern Mexican village in Zacatecas. This came just a day after nine more bodies were found in an alley in the city of Fresnillo, also in Zacatecas state. Messages addressed to a criminal group were found with these remainsauthorities said.

Mexico has recorded more than 450,000 murders since a controversial military anti-narcotics operation began in 2006, according to official figures.

AFP contributed to this report.