An American couple were killed while visiting a violence-torn part of western Mexico

A couple from the United States were shot dead while visiting the western Mexican state Michoacanwhich was surpassed by A A wave of violent crimes.

State prosecutors said in a statement On Thursday, the couple — identified as Gloria A., 50, and Rafael C., 53 — were traveling in a pickup truck in the Angamakotero municipality on Wednesday when they were shot and killed.

The statement added that the woman died at the scene and the man died of his injuries a short time later at a local hospital.

It was not immediately clear why the married couple were targeted.

The spokeswoman for the State Public Prosecution said Reuters The woman, who obtained US citizenship, and the man, who was born in the United States to Mexican parents, have a family and a home in Angamacotero.

Escalating violence, much of it linked to the drug trade, has seen more than 450,000 people killed in Mexico since 2006, when the government launched a crackdown on organized crime.

Mexican President Claudia SheinbaumHe, who took office last October, ruled out waging a new “war on drugs,” which is the name given to the controversial program.

She pledged to follow her predecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s strategy of “hugs, not bullets” in using social policy to address the causes of crime.

Gangs and drug cartels have long infiltrated, intimidated or bribed local officials to work for them, often going so far as to seize part of the municipal budget or use local police forces to warn or protect them from federal raids. Sometimes, police officers themselves benefit from the drug trade.

Speaking out about cartel corruption can have deadly consequences. Earlier this year, he was one of the business leaders in the state of Tamaulipas Shot to death After he complained in television interviews about cartel blackmail. Just weeks earlier, a prominent businesswoman had filed similar complaints killing In the northern border state of Baja California.