Gunmen on jet skis open fire on Cancun beach, killing boy

A 12-year-old boy was killed after gunmen on jet skis opened fire at a beach in Cancun, authorities said, marking another incident of deadly violence at a Mexican resort in recent years.

Mexican prosecutors said in a statement late Sunday that the gunmen were targeting a rival drug dealer on the beach and fled after the barrage of bullets. Apparently, they were engaged in a dispute over drug sales.

The boy, a local resident, was apparently lying on a lounge chair on the beach with his family when he was hit by stray bullets. The boy was taken to a local hospital where he later died.

"It is so sad that things like these happen," the person close to the victim's family told Mexican newspaper El Universal .

According to the newspaper, the shooting happened on Playa Caracol near the Riu Cancun hotel. A hotel spokesperson told El Universal the victim was not staying at the hotel and that no guests were injured in the shooting.

Territorial disputes between drug dealers have cost the lives of several tourists in the resorts along Mexico's Caribbean coast in recent years. In May, 10 bodies were found scattered in the country's once-glamorous resort city of Acapulco, which has been engulfed by violence linked to cartels , local security officials said.

In February, three people were shot dead by gunmen – one who arrived and fled aboard a boat – in Acapulco.

In 2022, two Canadians were killed in Playa del Carmen, south of Cancun, apparently because of debts between international drug and weapons trafficking gangs.

In 2021, further south in Tulum, two tourists — one a California travel blogger born in India and a German national — were killed when they apparently were caught in the crossfire of a gunfight between rival drug dealers.