Seven individuals, including several minors, were killed in a shooting early Monday morning in San Bartolo de Berrios, a village in the municipality of San Felipe, Guanajuato, Mexico, further cementing the state’s reputation as the country’s deadliest region.

The attack occurred around 2:00 am on May 19, 2025, at a plaza in the central square of San Bartolo de Berrios, following a church-organized festivity where local police discovered seven male bodies and a damaged van following reports of gunfire, according to a statement from local authorities. Approximately 100 shell casings were found at the scene.

Officers also found two banners with messages referencing the Santa Rosa de Lima gang, which operates in the area. The local government indicated that such messages are typically left on victims’ bodies or at the crime scene by cartels attempting to threaten rival groups or punish those who allegedly violate their self-imposed rules.

Guanajuato, despite being a thriving industrial center and home to several popular tourist destinations, recorded the highest number of homicides of any Mexican state last year, with
2,597 murders.

Security experts attribute the persistent violence to an ongoing conflict between the Santa Rosa de Lima gang and the Jalisco New Generation cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful criminal organizations. The turf war has transformed parts of this central Mexican state into dangerous territories where civilians, including children, often become casualties.

In response to this latest incident, the Episcopal Conference of Mexico, an organization of Mexican bishops, issued a strong condemnation. “We cannot remain indifferent in the face of the spiral of violence that affects so many communities,” the conference stated on May 20, 2025.

The Catholic leadership characterized the shooting as one among many that occur with “painful frequency” throughout the country, describing it as an alarming indication of weakening social fabric, widespread impunity, and the absence of peace across vast regions of predominantly Catholic Mexico.

This attack represents just the latest in a series of deadly incidents that have plagued Guanajuato in recent months. In February 2025, eight individuals—five women and three men—were shot and killed on a street in the state. The previous month, security forces engaged in a violent confrontation with suspected cartel members, resulting in ten alleged criminals dead and three police officers injured.

December 2024 saw another mass casualty event when eight people lost their lives and two others suffered injuries after gunmen opened fire on customers at a roadside stand in Guanajuato. The violence has become so normalized that the Catholic Church in Mexico took the extraordinary step that same month of calling on warring cartels to declare a truce.

The situation reached a particularly disturbing point in October 2024 when authorities discovered the bodies of 12 police officers bearing signs of torture in different areas of the region. The state prosecutor’s office reported that perpetrators left messages claiming cartel responsibility for the killings. Within 24 hours of this grim discovery, gunmen attacked a residential addiction treatment center in the same municipality, killing four people.

Earlier in 2024, the violence claimed even younger victims when six members of the same family, including a baby and a toddler, were murdered in Guanajuato in June. The following month, a mayoral candidate was gunned down in the street just as her campaign was beginning.

The ongoing violence has prompted the U.S. State Department to urge Americans to reconsider travel to Guanajuato. The department has expressed particular concern about the high number of murders in the southern region of the state associated with cartel-related violence. As of May 2025, the U.S. State Department has issued a Level 3 “Reconsider Travel” advisory for Guanajuato due to crime.

Since 2006, when the Mexican military launched a major anti-drug operation, the country has recorded approximately 480,000 violent deaths. Critics of government security policies point to this staggering figure as evidence that the militarized approach to combating cartels has failed to reduce violence and may have exacerbated territorial conflicts between rival criminal organizations.

Law enforcement officials in Guanajuato have struggled to contain the violence despite increased federal resources allocated to the state. Local security experts suggest that the strategic location of Guanajuato—with highway networks connecting to major cities and border areas—makes it particularly valuable territory for criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking, fuel theft, and extortion.