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11 killed in arson attack at bar in northern Mexico

A man who was thrown out of a bar in Mexico for improper behavior toward women went back and set fire to it, killing 11 people, authorities said Saturday. The suspect has been arrested, officials said. 

The arson attack happened overnight Friday into Saturday in the town of San Luis Rio Colorado, in the northern state of Sonora, which borders the U.S.

The fire killed seven men and four women and wounded six others, the state prosecutor's office in Sonora said.

11 killed in arson attack at bar in northern Mexico
Authorities outside a bar that was set ablaze in an arson attack in San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, Mexico on July 22, 2023. Eleven people died in the attack.  ALBERTO DE LA HOYA/La Tremenda Cosa/AFP via Getty Images

The attacker was expelled from the bar "for treating women disrespectfully," and then returned and threw a flaming object into it, presumably a Molotov cocktail, the prosecutor's office said.

Santos González Yescas, the mayor of San Luis Rio Colorado —which abuts the border south of Yuma, Arizona — tweeted Saturday afternoon that a suspect had been arrested in the fatal attack on the Beer House bar. He did not identify the man.  

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