Bus driver, 3 women murdered in southern Mexico

The attack occurred at around 6:45 a.m. on the Chilapa-Hueycantenango highway at a place called La Cienaga.

Army troops, state police and Federal Police officers went to the scene of the attack after residents notified officials that someone had been wounded in the area.

Security forces members arriving on the scene found the bodies of three Nahuatl Indian women and the driver of a public bus plying the San Jeronimo Palantla-Chilapa route.

A wounded man was found nearby a few minutes later and given first aid before being transported to Chilapa General Hospital.

The city of Chilapa de Alvarez is one of the areas plagued by drug-related violence in Guerrero amid the turf war between the Los Ardillos and Los Rojos gangs.

The only route for smuggling out poppies grown in the mountains of Guerrero runs through the area.

Ulises Fabian Quiroz, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, candidate for mayor of Chilapa, was murdered on May 1.

Residents reported the disappearances of 16 people after armed civilians claiming to be members of a vigilante group occupied the city for several days in May.

The Federal Police took over security functions in the city following the disappearances, temporarily reducing the level of violence in the area.

The killings of the bus driver and passengers come on the heels of the murders of four members of a family on Sunday night in Polixtepec, another city in Guerrero.

Both Chilapa and Polixtepec are located in areas where the poppies used to produce heroin for shipment to the United States are grown.