Eleven people were killed in a suspected arson attack on a bar in the northern Mexican border city of San Luis Rio Colorado after an expelled patron set it ablaze with a Molotov cocktail, Sonora state police said on Saturday.
According to preliminary investigations, the suspect was young, male, and heavily intoxicated at the time of the incident in the early hours of Saturday, and had previously been booted out of the bar for being disrespectful to women.
A statement from authorities in the state, which shares a long border with Arizona, says he subsequently returned and tossed a type of Molotov cocktail at the bar’s doors.
Four of the 11 dead were women, and four more people were being treated in hospital for their injuries, they added.
One of the women was a US citizen, most likely a dual Mexican national, and another victim was only 17 years old, Gustavo Romulo Salas, the state attorney general, told a press conference.
Santos Gonzalez, the mayor of the city, said that the suspect, a man, had been arrested by police.
