The fire was intentionally ignited by a drunken patron who had been kicked out of the bar for behaving disrespectfully toward women there, prosecutors said, citing preliminary interviews with witnesses. The patron, whom prosecutors described as young and “male-looking,” then returned to the premises armed with what appeared to be a molotov cocktail, prosecutors said, citing witnesses.
Police on Saturday arrested one person accused of starting the fire deliberately, Mayor Santos González Yescas tweeted, without identifying the suspect.
Local authorities shared images of the business engulfed in flames, as fire officials sought to control the blaze. Photographs taken the next morning show the charred remains of the bar’s cordoned-off premises, its sign barely legible, and the U.S.-Mexico border wall visible just behind it.
According to local prosecutors, seven men and four women were among those killed. “I join in the grief and deep sorrow that the families and friends of the 11 victims of the fire are going through,” the mayor said in a tweet. In a separate statement, the governor of Sonora state, Alfonzo Durazo, thanked security forces for their efficiency in finding the person accused of being responsible.
Those who were injured are being treated in hospitals on both sides of the border, prosecutors said.
In 2019, at least 27 people were killed in the Mexican state of Veracruz when assailants were accused of locking the doors of a nightclub and setting the building on fire. In August 2011, 52 people were killed in an arson attack on a casino in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, which police linked to the fearsome Zetas drug-smuggling gang.
