Mexican authorities have arrested three suspects in the case of a 7-month-old baby who was shot and killed along with his parents as they left a convenience store in the city of Pinotepa Nacional, Oaxaca state.
The Oaxaca State’s Attorney’s Office identified the suspects as Juan Antonio Lopez Lopez, Arturo Arzate Vargas and Oscar Silver Idael Olmedo Lopez. They were detained in a Monday night raid on a house in Oaxaca state.
The case caused fury and great indignation in Mexico. The picture of the dead baby in a bloodstained white onesie, lying head down between his father’s torso and left arm, went viral. The young mother, wearing denim shorts and a red blouse, lies in the background, also dead.
Oaxaca prosecutors identified the baby’s father as Juan Alberto Pano Ramos, 24. He was carrying Marcos Miguel Pano Colon in his arms when armed men attacked them the night of January 29. The mother was identified as Alba Isabel Colon, 17.
Many compared the image of the Mexican baby to that of Alan Kurdi, the 3-year-old Syrian refugee boy whose body was found on a Turkish beach last year after he drowned in the Mediterranean Sea.
The Syrian boy’s death was emblematic of the ordeal Syrian refugees endure, some said in social media sites. By comparison, they said, the Mexican baby’s death reflects the horrors of drug-related violence that has terrorized a generation of Mexicans.
The State Attorney’s Office said the motive appears to be drug-related. “A rival drug gang from (the neighboring state of) Guerrero located them and had them riddled with bullets,” prosecutors said in a statement sent to CNN, adding that the parents of the baby sold drugs.
Drug-related violence has plagued the state of Guerrero in recent years. Guerrero had 2,016 homicides last year, the most of any Mexican state, according to government figures.
That violence is spilling over into Oaxaca, where the baby’s parents had recently moved, according to authorities.
The same night the family was gunned down in Pinotepa Nacional, another family of three, including a 14-year-old girl, were shot and killed in the municipality of Miahuatlan.