Seven young people, including two minors, were shot dead in the early hours of May 19, 2025, in the central square of San Bartolo de Berrios, a village in Guanajuato state, Mexico, following a parish festival organized by the local Catholic church.
The attack occurred around 2:40 a.m. when gunmen from a cartel arrived in trucks and opened fire on people who had remained in the town square after the church event. Eyewitnesses reported that the assailants drove directly to the village square and fired dozens of shots seemingly at random at those present.
The Guanajuato state prosecutor’s office confirmed the number of deaths but provided no additional details about the incident. Messages scrawled on signs left at several nearby locations appear to indicate the attack was carried out by the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel, according to multiple reports.
Archbishop Jaime Calderón Calderón of the Archdiocese of León condemned the massacre in a statement, describing how gunmen brazenly opened fire on the people they found in the square. The archbishop expressed outrage and shock at the act, urging authorities to find those responsible and seek justice to prevent such incidents from recurring in society.
The Mexican bishops’ conference issued a statement on May 20, 2025, declaring that “cannot remain indifferent to the spiral of violence” affecting communities across the country. The conference emphasized that society cannot become accustomed to living with violent death or allow impunity to become the norm.
This massacre represents the second such attack on young people in Guanajuato within two months. In March 2025, eight young people were gunned down outside a parish in Salamanca, a municipality in the neighboring Diocese of Irapuato, following a celebration of Mass.
Residents of San Bartolo de Berrios reported hearing approximately 100 shots fired within the span of a few minutes during the early morning hours. Witnesses described the scene in the central square as resembling a bloodbath, with the bodies of the seven victims strewn across the pavement.
Guanajuato state has become one of Mexico’s most violent regions despite its historical significance as a Catholic stronghold visited by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012. The state recorded the highest number of murders in Mexico during 2024, with 2,597 homicides reported according to some sources, while another report cited 3,151 murders, representing approximately 10.5 percent of all homicides in the country.
The violence stems from territorial disputes between rival drug cartels, particularly the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel. These organizations engage in extortion and drug trafficking while increasingly targeting pipelines that carry petroleum from refineries to major distribution points throughout the state.
The practice of stealing and selling fuel on the black market, known as huachicoleo, has become a major revenue source for criminal gangs in the region. Both cartels have been locked in a deadly battle for control over territory, often employing brutal tactics to spread fear among local populations to ensure silence and compliance.
While Guanajuato has developed into one of Mexico’s industrial heartlands over the past three decades as automakers established factories in the region, the state has simultaneously experienced a surge in cartel-related violence. The criminal organizations use bloody shootings and threatening messages as particularly brutal methods to demonstrate their expansion into new territories.
Attacks on nightclubs, bars, and cockfighting venues are not uncommon in Mexican states affected by cartel violence, but an assault on an event organized by the Catholic Church is considered rare. The targeting of a parish festival represents an escalation in the type of venues and events that cartels are willing to attack in their territorial struggles.
The Episcopal Conference of Mexico, representing the country’s bishops, condemned the fatal shooting and expressed its inability to remain indifferent to the spiral of violence affecting communities throughout the nation. The conference’s statement highlighted concerns about the weakening of social fabric, impunity, and absence of peace in vast regions of Mexico.
No arrests have been made in connection with the attack as of the latest reports. The incident adds to growing concerns about security in Guanajuato state, where the combination of industrial development and cartel activity has created a volatile environment for residents and religious communities alike.