Footage emerged of gunmen brazenly entering a hospital, pulling a patient from his room, and carrying him out on a stretcher to be killed.
The attack occurred Nov. 21 at a hospital in Salvatierra, a city in the central part of Mexico, according to Fox News. The footage shows multiple armed hitmen searching hospital rooms while dragging one of the medical center’s security guards around at gunpoint. The abductors reportedly took cell phones from staff at the hospital to stop them from calling police during the raid.
Once the gunmen found their target, they quickly pulled the injured man out of his hospital bed, put him on a stretcher, and left the facility. The body of that same man, who has not been identified, was found just hours later in a nearby town dismembered on white sheets with a message written on cardboard.
It is not yet clear who the gunmen are or why they abducted and murdered the injured hospital patient. The incident echoes other recent attacks at Mexican hospitals. Gunmen attacked two other hospitals recently and, in both cases, removed and killed male patients who had been recovering from gunshot wounds.
The incidents underscore the continued cartel-related violence plaguing the country.
On Saturday, a horde of armed cartel members stormed a small town near the Texas border and attacked local government buildings. The violence resulted in the deaths of at least 21 people. Last month, six American children and three women were killed when they were ambushed in northern Mexico by suspected cartel members.
