MEXICO
13 killed in violent Mexico state
ACAPULCO — Police said eight men were killed in an attack on a funeral in a rural area of Guerrero, part of a death toll of 13 over the weekend in the southern state plagued by drug violence.
An Atoyac de Alvarez municipal police statement said officers found seven dead and two injured early Sunday at the scene of a vigil. One of the injured later died.
The statement said the funeral-goers were attacked by masked men firing large-caliber rifles favored by drug cartels as they mourned the victim of a shooting several days earlier.
Acapulco police said Sunday that three bodies were found dumped in a vacant lot in the resort city, while a fourth was found decapitated in a car and another man died in a shootout with police.
CHILE
Off-shore earthquake hits south-central region
SANTIAGO — A magnitude-6.2 earthquake struck Monday just off the shore of south-central Chile, the same area devastated by a massive temblor two years ago.
But there were no immediate reports of damage and authorities said it would not cause a tsunami.
The quake was centered 31 miles northwest of Concepcion, and relatively shallow, at 12 miles deep.
Chile’s navy announced that it was not the kind of quake to generate a deadly tsunami of the kind that ravaged nearby coastal cities when an magnitude-8.8 quake devastated Chile in 2010.
The U.S. Geological Service said this quake struck at 1:04 p.m. local time with a magnitude of 6.2. Chilean seismologists measured it as a less-powerful 5.8.
Chile’s national emergency office said there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
HAITI
U.N. hit by child sex cases
UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations said Monday that two cases of “sexual exploitation” of children by U.N. police are being investigated in Haiti.
U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said the organization was “outraged” by the cases that had been reported in Port-au-Prince and the provincial city of Gonaives.
The spokesman did not give the nationality of the U.N. police involved in the allegations.
The scandal has erupted only a few months after Uruguayan troops were accused of raping a Haitian youth.
Mr. Nesirky said the U.N. mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH, had informed the U.N. leadership of two cases of “sexual exploitation and abuse involving minors” on Jan. 16.
One involved U.N. police based in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and the second was in Gonaives.
“The United Nations is outraged by these allegations and takes its responsibilities to deal with them extremely seriously,” said Mr. Nesirky.
MEXICO
Officials: ’Chapo’ aide killed in gunfight
MEXICO CITY — Mexican officials said members of an army special forces unit fatally shot a high-ranking aide to the country’s most-wanted drug dealer in a gunfight in the northern state of Durango.
Army spokesman Gen. Ricardo Trevilla said Monday that Luis Alberto Cabrera Sarabia was responsible for the operations of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera’s Sinaloa Cartel in Durango and part of the neighboring state of Chihuahua.
The army said Mr. Sarabia is known as “The Architect,” and was named to the role after the December arrest of his brother Felipe Cabrera Sarabia, or “The Engineer.”
Sinaloa gunmen traded fire with troops during the operation to arrest Luis Cabrera Sarabia on Friday. One of the gunmen was slain and 11 others were captured. Four soldiers were hurt in the gunfight.
• From wire dispatches and staff reports
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