A local mayor from the opposition in the western state of Michoacán, who had been reported missing over the weekend, was discovered dead by police officers.

He was the first official slain in the group this year, which has been plagued by criminal organizations competing for control of the territory in recent months.

Enrique Velázquez, municipal president of Contepec, was found dead Monday afternoon on a property in the town of El Jacal, belonging to that municipality, the Michoacán Attorney General’s Office said in a statement.

Investiga #FGEMich homicidio del presidente municipal de #Contepec. #MásInfo ➡️ https://t.co/kc0fcUq0Gf pic.twitter.com/KokHIvIJ9C

— Fiscalía General del Estado de Michoacán (@FiscaliaMich) February 8, 2022

According to the Prosecutor’s Office, Velázquez’s body had gunshot wounds.

Velázquez, 38, was a veterinarian and member of the opposition organization Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The politician had been elected municipal president of Contepec in the regional elections last June.

The mayor’s murder occurs amid an escalation of violence in Michoacán, where Roberto Toledo, a contributor to the news portal Monitor Michoacán, was shot to death last week, and seven other people were shot on Jan. 27 inside a home in the El Porvenir neighborhood of the Zamora municipality. 

In the same municipality, at the end of January, a confrontation took place between members of an armed group at the service of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel and elements of the federal and state forces that left two alleged criminals dead, two policemen injured and more than 18 detainees.

Michoacán is one of the six states in the country, along with Guanajuato, Baja California, Jalisco, Mexico, and Chihuahua, which concentrated half of the homicides that were registered between January and December, which reached 33,308, according to figures from the Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection.

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