Shootout between soldiers, gunmen kills children, ages 5 and 8, in northern Mexico

2 children killed in Mexico border state shootout

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico — A shootout in northern Mexico between soldiers and suspected drug cartel gunmen killed two children and wounded five of their relatives who were caught in the crossfire, the latest in a string of deaths of bystanders in the nation’s drug war.

The 5- and 8-year-old brothers were traveling in their family’s car when the gunbattle broke out on a highway near the border city of Nuevo Laredo, the Tamaulipas state government said in statement Sunday night. The statement corrected an initial government report that only bystander was killed in the confrontation Saturday night.

Two suspected gunmen were also killed.

“We ran and tried to hide in the brush, but they kept shooting,” said Maria Guadalupe Delgado Castillo, an aunt of the dead children.

She sobbed as she waited outside the Nuevo Laredo General Hospital where her relatives were being treated. One family member was shot in the stomach and the other four had less severe injuries.

The state government said 11 family members were in the car, which it described as an “all terrain vehicle” similar to the ones in a convoy of drug cartel suspects. The statement did not say which side fired the bullets that struck the family’s car.

The army had no comment.

Innocent people have increasingly been caught in the crossfire of Mexico’s gang battles, from waitresses killed in bar shootings to doctors ducking for cover as gunmen burst into emergency rooms to finish off rivals.

Saturday’s shooting was the second time in less than a month that bystanders were killed battles between soldiers and gangs sweeping northwestern Mexico.

Two university students were killed in the crossfire of a shootout between gunmen and soldiers outside the gates of their campus on March 19 in the city of Monterrey in Nuevo Leon state.

Military patrols and checkpoints have repeatedly come under fire in Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, where armed gangs have raised roadblocks in the middle of cities and around army bases in a bold new tactic to impede security operations.

Mexican authorities say a split between the Gulf cartel and its former ally, the Zetas gang, is fueling the violence in the region.