Two women in Arizona shot dead on highway in Mexico

Two Arizona women were shot and killed on a dangerous stretch of highway in Mexico last week, prosecutors said.

The two women, aged 72 and 82, were found dead in an overturned white Nissan Pathfinder riddled with bullet holes on the side of the Sonoyta-Caborca ​​highway near a Mexican border town around 10:30 a.m. Friday, the Sonora Attorney General's Office said.

A security source told Reuters that the women were identified only by their first names, Enedina and Ubaldina, and had dual U.S.-Mexican citizenship.

Prosecutors said the women were originally from Caborca.

As authorities searched for the shooter or shooters, investigators found a dark blue Ford F-150 truck that had been reported stolen, containing a supply of magazines and cartridges, four AK-47 rifles and three bulletproof vests, prosecutors said.

“Security forces at three levels of government, with the support of specialized air and ground troops, immediately launched an operation to locate and arrest the criminal group responsible,” Sonora state prosecutors said.

No arrests were made.

The State Department told the Arizona Republic that the two victims were U.S. citizens and that the situation was being closely monitored.

“We express our deepest condolences to the family and relatives of the deceased,” the spokesman said.

The highway where their bodies were found runs near the violence-stricken town of Sonoyta in the state of Sonora.

Last year, a Californian doctoral student was shot dead in his SUV in the northwestern state of Sonora.

The State Department has warned Americans to reconsider traveling to Sonora because of the risk of crime and kidnapping.

With post wires