2 soldiers killed by landmine blast in Mexico day after 2 troops killed by booby trap in same region

A blast killed two Mexican soldiers in the second deadly incident this week involving an improvised landmine in a crime-plagued western state, authorities said Wednesday.

According to the El Universal newspaper, the soldiers were trying to deactivate the device when it exploded.

The blast happened late on Tuesday in Buenavista in Michoacan, the state prosecutor’s office said.

A military source who did not want to be named said that troops were looking for similar devices believed to have been planted in the area.

On Monday, a blast caused by another improvised landmine killed two Mexican soldiers and wounded five others in the same region. Before the explosion, the soldiers had discovered the dismembered bodies of three people, officials said.

The device was suspected to have been planted by members of a local criminal group waging a turf war with a bigger drug cartel, Defense Minister Ricardo Trevilla said Tuesday.

Six other soldiers had been killed by similar improvised devices since late 2018, he said.

Mexico is plagued by widespread drug-related violence that has seen more than 450,000 people killed since the government deployed the army to combat trafficking in 2006, according to official figures.

In the only previous detailed report on cartel bomb attacks in August 2023, the defense department said at that time that a total of 42 soldiers, police and suspects were wounded by IEDs in the first seven and a half months of 2023, up from 16 in all of 2022.

Overall, 556 improvised explosive devices of all types – roadside, drone-carried and car bombs – were found in 2023, the army said in a news release last year.