11 bodies dumped in pickup truck in Mexico

The bodies of 11 people, including two women and two minors, were found abandoned in a pickup truck in a southern Mexican city plagued by criminal violence, authorities said Thursday.

The state prosecutor's office said it had opened a murder investigation after the grisly discovery in Chilpancingo, whose mayor was beheaded last month less than a week after taking office.

The city is the capital of the southern state of Guerrero, which has endured years of bloodshed linked to turf wars between drug cartels.

Authorities said last week that they were investigating the suspected kidnapping of 17 people, including five minors, by drug traffickers in the same region, but it was not immediately clear if the two cases were linked.

The military has deployed troops to search for the missing persons, who are said to be traveling merchants.

The truck containing the bodies was found on a highway to Acapulco, the former beachside playground of the rich and famous now blighted by criminal violence.

The corpses had been dismembered, complicating efforts to identify them, according to a source at the prosecutor's office who asked not to be named.

Last week, three other dismembered bodies were found in a vehicle in Chilpancingo.

Spiraling violence, much of it linked to drug trafficking and gangs, has seen more than 450,000 people murdered in Mexico since 2006.