Baby and 7-year-old girl among six killed in south Mexico

A one-year-old baby and a seven-year-old girl were among six people shot dead in another day of violence in Mexico's troubled southern state of Guerrero, authorities said Tuesday.

At least one of the six victims in Monday's killing in the municipality of Chilapa was related to the town's former police chief, the state prosecutor's office said in a statement.

The latest murders left a death toll of at least 22 people killed in two days of violence in Guerrero, a region beset by drug crimes.

On Sunday, 12 people were killed when a shootout erupted during a cockfight in the town of Cuajinicuilapa. The same day, four more were killed on a football field in an unrelated shooting in the resort of Acapulco.

Guerrero Governor Hector Astudillo said he suspects that two criminal gangs were behind the massacre at the cockfight, which took place in a part of the state not accustomed to that type of violence.

Chilapa, however, has been mired in a turf war between two drug gangs -- Los Rojos and Los Ardillos -- battling for control of heroin trafficking routes in this major opium poppy growing region.

The state prosecutor's office had few details about Monday's attack and victims in Chilapa. But a senior state police official said the two children and three adults were fleeing in a taxi as gunmen pursued them.

The gunmen killed them and burned the taxi, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

One of the victims, who was not identified, was related to former Chilapa police chief Silvestre Carreto Gonzalez, who was sacked in July 2014, prosecutors said.

"Among the victims we have a seven-year-old minor and another who was one, along with his mother and two other adults," the state police official said, adding that all five appeared to be related to Carreto Gonzalez.

Carreto Gonzalez's son was killed a week ago.

The sixth victim was found dead in another nearby location with AK-47 bullet wounds, the official said.

In May, at least 10 people disappeared from Chilapa when a mysterious group of 300 armed men occupied the town for several days. Five of those missing shared the same last name as Carreto Gonzalez.

The town is only 38 kilometers (23 miles) from Ayotzinapa, home to the teacher training college attended by 43 students who disappeared at the hands of corrupt police in another part of Guerrero last year.