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Christmas drugs shootings in Mexico have seen at least 16 people killed in territory ruled by a rival to El Chapo’s cartel.

Mexico has seen 34,579 murders this year that equates to 94 each day, and there has been no let up over Christmas with at least 16 people killed on Christmas Eve in an area ruled by the Jalisco Nuevo Generacion cartel.

The brutal band run by El Mencho, who is on the run from American authorities, is now believed to be the strongest in Mexico since El Chapo’s arrest and life sentence in a US prison this year.

The town of Tlajomulco de Zuniga turned into a battle scene on Tuesday night when four men were shot dead as they left a shop with alcoholic drinks.

(Image: Twitter / JaliscoRojo)

They came out of the shop at 2.10am and employees heard several rounds of gunfire.

Police arriving at the scene found four men dead and several others injured on the floor. There were 40 used cartridges on the floor, a car which had received several gun shots and another without number plates.

In Tijuana, Baja California, another nine people were killed in a spree of shootings with authorities calculating a total of at least 16 dead in the northern states of Jalisco, Coahuila, Oaxaca and Baja California.

The local government mayor Arturo Garcia Velasquez was shot down and killed during a Christmas party.

(Image: AFP via Getty Images)

Armed men went to the offices of the authorities and killed the mayor from point blank range before also murdering a trade union leader.

The mayor had been arrested on October 24th having been found carrying guns used by the army but was released without charge due to insufficient evidence.

Since the arrest of El Chapo the battle for control by drug cartels has intensified and Donald Trump made plans to label Mexican cartels as terrorists after nine American citizens were killed from a Mormon community in Mexico.

Three women and six children of dual US-Mexican nationality were killed in an ambush in a remote area of northern Mexico.