Mexico crowd stampede kills five
Five people were trampled to death when a gunshot fired at a cattle fair sent a panic-stricken crowd rushing for the exits in a northern Mexico town already on edge from rampant drug violence.
At least 17 other people were injured at the fair in Guadalupe on Sunday, outside the industrial city of Monterrey, said Adrian de la Garza, head of the Nuevo Leon State Investigative Agency.
The dead, two women and three men, lay outside the building surrounded by crumpled beer cans and other litter dropped in the rush.
Police found a bullet casing from the shot that likely caused the stampede during a concert, de la Garza said
At least 12 people at the scene were detained for questioning, according to an agency official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk publicly about the case.
Guadalupe Mayor Ivonne Alvarez said the rest of the event has been cancelled.
A surge in shootings has shaken the Monterrey area and other parts of north-eastern Mexico, where the Gulf cartel is battling for territory with its former ally, the Zetas gang of hit men.
Five people were killed Saturday night in a gun battle between gang members and soldiers in Camargo, a small town in Tamaulipas state, which borders Nuevo Leon, according to a brief statement from the Tamaulipas government. The statement said the five killed were civilians but did not say whether any were bystanders.
Innocent bystanders have increasingly been caught in the crossfire. Two children were killed last month when the car they were riding in drove into a gun battle between soldiers and gang members outside the Tamaulipas city of Nuevo Laredo.
In March, two Monterrey university students were killed during a clash between soldiers and gunmen at the gates of their campus.