6 Prison guards murdered in northern Mexico

Mexico City, Agency
Six guards who worked at a prison in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua were murdered Wednesday morning while they sat in a parked pick-up truck, state prosecutors said.

The prison guards were killed in the northern section of Chihuahua city, the state capital, the Chihuahua Attorney General's Office said.

The six men, who worked at the Morelos district prison in Aquiles Cerdan, a city just outside the state capital, were going "to pick up a co-worker" when they were killed, AG's office spokesmen told Efe.

Several armed men got out of some other vehicles and opened fire on the parked pick-up truck.

One body was found in the pick-up's bed, two inside the vehicle and the other three in the street.

Investigators have not determined yet whether the prison guards were headed to work or home when they were attacked.

Prison guards are frequently killed in northern Mexico as members of rival gangs fight for control of prisons in the region, officials say.

Chihuahua, one of the country's most dangerous states, is home to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico's murder capital.

More than 7,000 gangland killings have occurred so far this year in Mexico, according to officials, while the death toll for all of 2009 was 7,724.