Cancún shooting: five people gunned down in Mexico's tourist hotspot

Five people have been shot dead and five more wounded in Cancún after gunmen burst into a bar in the Mexican resort city and opened fire.

Quintana Roo state prosecutors said the attack on Saturday took place in a club called La Kuka, on a main avenue in central Cancún about 6km (4 miles) away from the Caribbean resort city’s seaside tourist hotel zone, situated on the Yucatán Peninsula.

Prosecutors said four men carrying a long gun and three handguns entered and began shooting. Two of the injured were in critical condition.

Violence has been rising in Cancún and the state of Quintana Roo as a whole amid reports of the Jalisco New Generation cartel moving into the area and fighting local gangs for control.

Last month federal authorities reported that 774 people had been killed in the state last year, more than double the 359 killings recorded in 2017.

Also in January, gunmen shot and killed seven people at a house in Cancún, an incident that authorities attributed to a dispute between street-level drug dealers.

State police said at the time that a suspected gang leader linked to the Jalisco gang was believed to be behind the attack.