Two human rights workers were killed in an ambush in the Mexican southern state of Oaxaca, authorities said Wednesday.
A Finnish citizen, Jyri Antero Jaakkola, and a Mexican activist, Beatriz Alberta Carino Trujillo were part of a caravan that was attacked Tuesday, the Oaxaca attorney general's office said, the state-run Notimex news agency reported.
The two victims were part of a group of activists from various organizations traveling to the city of San Juan Copala with members of Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca, or APPO by its Spanish initials.
Both died from gunshot wounds, the attorney general's office said. A third person was injured
The APPO is a leftist movement that seized control of the Oaxacan capital for months in 2006 in a bid to oust the governor.
Witnesses told authorities that the gunmen were members of a rival group, the Regional Union of Social Well-being, with whom the APPO has long had hostile relations, Notimex reported. There are other armed groups that are in dispute of the remote area, Notimex said.
The activists' caravan was heading to San Juan Copala on a humanitarian mission to deliver clothes and other goods to residents there, in addition to assessing the violence that has been recorded in the area, the news agency said
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