A drug cartel dumped an SUV filled with 10 corpses near the Christmas tree outside the offices of a Mexican governor, officials say

• An SUV filled with bodies was parked close to a Christmas tree outside the office of a Mexican governor.
• The 10 bodies showed apparent signs of beating and bruises, Zacatecas's state governor says.

An SUV filled with dead bodies was abandoned outside the office of a Mexican state governor, officials said Thursday.

The Mazda SUV, containing the corpses, was parked under a Christmas tree in the main plaza of the state capital in the state capital of Zacatecas, in north-central Mexico, The Guardian reported.

The bodies — 8 men and two women — showed apparent signs of beating and bruises, Zacatecas state governor David Monreal said.

"They came to leave them here in front of the palace," he said, referring to his offices in a historic building, reported The Guardian.

Autopsies showed that all 10 bodies died of "asphyxiation by strangulation," according to a video by the state's chief prosecutor José Murillo Ruiseco.

Six of them had injuries suggesting their hands and feet had been tied together, per CBS News, and one showed indications that the person had been tortured.

The Mexican security ministry is sending assistance to help investigate the incident, according to BBC News.

Two arrests have been made in connection with the discovery of the bodies, BBC News reported.

The crime resulted from fighting between gangs, said President Andrés Manuel López Obrador during a news conference Friday. The bodies were left there as a "provocation," he added, per The Washington Post.

Zacatecas has Mexico's highest murder rate, per The New York Times, as rival gangs fight for control of drug-smuggling routes. The state registered 1,050 murders in 2021, DW reported.

In November, the bodies of six people were found hanging from a bridge and a tree in Zacatecas, said reports.