Mexican gunmen killed 10 police officers and injured several more in Michoacan state while 17 prisoners were killed in a jail in Sinaloa state

Federal police forces are conducting ground and air searches for the perpetrators of the attack on the officers in the city of Zitacuaro. The police were traveling from Michoacan state toward Mexico City when their convoy was ambushed. Hours after that incident, 17 inmates were killed in a prison riot in the city of Mazatlan. Two police officers were wounded. Violence in the region is reaching new highs, causing residents of cities such as Ciudad Juarez, which borders El Paso, to abandon their homes and their cities. About 25% of homes in Ciudad Juarez are abandoned. Recently, Mexican officials found 20 people shot dead in Ciudad Madero in Tamaulipas state, and criminals killed 19 people in an execution-style attack at a drug rehabilitation center in the northern state of Chihuahua. More than 22,000 people have been killed in Mexico in violence related to organized crime since December 2006. Michoacan, a state in central Mexico west of the capital, is the home base for the La Familia drug gang and was the site of a grenade attack that killed eight people during an Independence Day celebration in 2008.