Are tourists at risk? Cancun murders spike as drug cartels wage a bloody turf war

Paradise has been overrun by violence.

One of the most popular tourist destinations in Mexico has recently been transformed into one of the bloodiest high-profile battlegrounds in a turf war between drug cartels.

Cancun, the party town on the beaches of the southeastern state of Quintana Roo, played host to 14 murders in one 36-hour spanstarting April 4, according to a translated version of a story from Mexican news outlet Notacaribe. Nine of the 14 were killed on April 4, making it the bloodiest single day in Cancun in more than a decade.

Six separate incidents accounted for the 14 deaths and left five others with gunshot wounds. The murder rates in Cancun have doubled in the past year, according to the New York Post, which reported that 113 people have been killed in the erstwhile hotspot so far in 2018.

Notacaribe reported that early April has been the bloodiest spell in Cancun since March of 2013, a surge highlighted by hit men executing seven people inside the bar La Sirenita.