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A shooting between suspected rival drug gangs broke out on the beach of a resort in Cancun, Mexico, Thursday afternoon, sending guests scrambling for safety.
Mexican state authorities said armed individuals were spotted in the beach area of Hyatt Riviera Cancun and reported to police, “who took the lives of two men who are presumed to be drug dealers.”
Authorities said no tourists were seriously injured or kidnapped.
The Quintana Roo attorney general said he had received reports of a confrontation between rival drug dealers on a beach in Bahía Petempich, Puerto Morelos. He said two of them lost their lives at the scene and that there were no serious injuries.
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Police said earlier a group of men with “long guns” had been spotted in the area of the Azul Beach hotel.
Mike Sington, a former executive, said he was at the resort and posted video footage on his Twitter account.
“Several guests have (said) they saw gunman come up from the beach, actively shooting,” he said.
A Hyatt spokesperson told Fox News the resort is aware of a “developing situation.”
“We understand the hotel team immediately engaged local authorities, who are on the scene investigating the situation,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The hotel team is taking steps in an effort to ensure the safety of guests and colleagues, and further questions may be directed to local authorities,” a Hyatt spokesperson told Fox News.
The U.S. embassy in Mexico said consulate officials were looking into social media reports of shots being fired at a resort in Cancun.
(Mike Sington/Handout via REUTERS)
Former Mexican Senator Claudia Anaya likened the tourists’ experience at the resort to a “horror movie,” saying that the problem of violence in Mexico is no longer confined to just the streets.
“Today, from a horror movie what tourists have experienced in an exclusive hotel in #Cancun,” she tweeted in Spanish. “Do you think tourists want to keep coming to share our tragedy?”
Guests gather in the hotel lobby after a reported shooting at Hyatt Ziva Riviera Cancun resort, in Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico, Nov. 4, 2021 in this still image obtained from a social media video.
(Mike Sington/Handout via REUTERS )
Andrew Krop told Fox News his husband was at the resort performing for the Vacaya gay vacation group.
Krop said his husband told him he heard gunshots and barricaded himself inside a room for about an hour before resort guests were escorted into the lobby and told they were safe.
Fox News has reached out to the U.S. embassy in Mexico and Quintana Roo State Police for comment.
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Thursday’s chaotic scenes came after a California woman was killed in the apparent crossfire of a drug gang shootout in Mexico’s Caribbean coast resort of Tulum last month.
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