Around 1:40 a.m. on Friday, December 29, 2023, music was still playing from a mobile disco in the street when the first shots were heard in Ciudad Obregón, in Mexico’s Sonora state. A girl’s fifteenth-birthday party had turned into a massacre.
Six people were killed. The attack hit the Cajeme neighborhood, on Pedro María Anaya street between Aquiles Serdán and Pascual Orozco. El Universal put the number of wounded at 26. The EFE news agency reported 25, and Infobae, citing local media, said about 20. Two of the dead were minors, and El Universal noted that five more minors were among the injured.
A fight, then gunmen
Guests said that a brawl broke out earlier, with stones and bottles thrown, and that a group of men then left the party. Infobae relayed witness accounts that armed men arrived minutes later in white pickup trucks and fired at close range at those present. They drove south before any authority could stop them.
The state prosecutor’s office said the first lines of investigation pointed to a direct attack on the leader of a criminal group. He was wanted on warrants for attempted femicide, aggravated homicide, unlawful deprivation of liberty and criminal association. He died on the spot, along with five others.
The target
El Universal identified him as “El Wacho”, also called “El Soldado”. Infobae, quoting the outlet Río Doce, said he had at least five arrest warrants. State Attorney General Gustavo Salas Chávez gave a press conference in Cajeme and said other people with criminal records were among those present. He declined to name them while the investigation continued. Infobae described the five other dead as possible collateral victims.
EFE added local context. The massacre brought the number of homicides in Cajeme, which covers Ciudad Obregón and the Yaqui Valley, to at least 50 for the month of December. The municipality is among the most violent in the country, and about ten people had been reported missing there that month.
Sources
- Masacre en Sonora: sicarios ingresan a fiesta de XV años y asesinan a seis personas – Infobae
- Fue un ataque directo en contra de un líder criminal, dice fiscalía sobre masacre en XV años en Cajeme, Sonora – El Universal
- Al menos 6 muertos y decenas de heridos durante balacera en una fiesta de 15 años en México – Telemundo (EFE)
