Seven Mexican youths have been shot dead at a festivity organised by the Catholic Church in the central state of Guanajuato.

Gunmen opened fire on a group of people who had stayed behind in the central square of the village of San Bartolo de Berrios after an event organised by the local parish.

Eyewitnesses said the assailants had driven straight to the village square in the early hours of Monday and fired dozens of shots seemingly at random.

The authorities have not yet said what the motive behind the shooting may have been but messages scrawled on signs left at several nearby locations appear to indicate it was carried out by the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel.

While attacks on nightclubs, bars and cockfighting venues are not unusual in Mexican states hit by cartel violence, an attack on an event organised by the Catholic Church is rare.

The Episcopal Conference of Mexico, which represents the country's bishops, condemned the fatal shooting saying it "cannot remain indifferent in the face of the spiral of violence that is wounding so many communities".

The local archbishop, Jaime Calderón, also released a statement blaming the attack on a fight for territory between rival cartels.

Guanajuato, where San Bartolo de Berrios is located, had the highest number of murders of any state in Mexico in 2024 with a total of 2,597 homicides.

Both the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel are active in the state and have been locked in a deadly battle for control over territory.

While the two groups engage in extortion and drug trafficking, they have also increasingly tapped pipelines which run through the state carrying petrol from refineries to major distribution points.

The practice of stealing and selling fuel on the black market - known as huachicoleo - is a major source of revenue for the criminal gangs in the region.

In their fight for territorial control, the gangs often try to spread fear amid the local population in order to ensure their silence and compliance.

Bloody shootings such as the one in San Bartolo de Berrios and the subsequent display of threatening messages are a particularly brutal way gangs use to show they have expanded into a particular town.

Residents of San Bartolo de Berrios said they had heard around 100 shots ring out in the early hours of Monday within the space of a few minutes.

They said the scene in the central square resembled "a bloodbath" with the bodies of the seven youths, two of them aged under 18, strewn across the pavement.

No arrests have so far been made in connection with the attack.