Zacatecas: A three-year-old boy was killed in an armed attack on a church in Fresnillo in the Mexican state of Zacatecas. 

According to the local press reports, two armed men arrived inside the church of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Fresnillo in search of a person, who entered the church to protect himself. Over there, the men began to shoot and the bullets hit the minor. The three-year-old boy named Caleb died instantly when struck by the bullets.

The boy was attending Mass with his mother. The young man who was chased by armed men also died later from his wounds in a hospital. This violent event caused panic among the parishioners who were in the compound.

“We are saddened and alarmed by the killing of a three-year-old boy inside the church of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Fresnillo, Zacatecas, where armed men entered following a man whom they wounded. Our condolences to the family of this little boy,” the Mexican Bishops’ Conference said in a May 20 statement.

In their statement, the Mexican bishops said that “this shows that all limits of violence and human respect are being exceeded. We once again call on everyone to lay down their arms and put an end to all forms of violence, because all of us can be builders of peace. No one has the right to attack the life of his brother and there is nothing that justifies such violence," the bishops stressed.

In their message, the prelates also remembered Father José Guadalupe Rivas, who was beaten to death on May 17.