MEXICO CITY : Two Jesuit priests have been killed inside a church in a remote mountainous area of northern Mexico, the Jesuit’s Mexico province announced on June 21.

Javier Campos Morales and Joaquín César Mora Salazar were killed on June 20 inside the church in Cerocahui, Chihuahua.

According to the Chihuahua State Attorney General's Office, both priests tried to protect a person who sought refuge in the church while being chased by at least one other man, both armed, El Sol de Mexico newspaper reported. The chaser reportedly shot and killed all three men.

Violence has plagued the Tarahumara mountains for years. Cerocahui is near a point where Chihuahua state meets Sonora and Sinaloa, a major drug-producing region.

A statement from the Roman Catholic Society of Jesus in Mexico demanded justice and the return of the men’s bodies. It said gunmen had taken them from the church.

“Acts like these are not isolated,” the statement said. “The Tarahumara mountains, like many other regions of the country, face conditions of violence and abandonment that have not been reversed. Every day men and women are arbitrarily deprived of life, as our murdered brothers were today.”

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said during his daily news conference Tuesday that the priests were apparently killed by gunmen pursuing another man who sought refuge in the church. That man was also killed, the president said.

López Obrador said authorities have information about possible suspects in the killings and that the area has a strong organized crime presence.

Luis Gerardo Moro Madrid SJ, Provincial of the Jesuits of Mexico, condemned the killings and said they are “working with the federal and state authorities to ensure the safety” of the parish’s two remaining priests.

The Jesuits issued a demand that “all protective measures be adopted immediately to safeguard the lives of our Jesuit brothers, sisters, lay people and the entire Cerocahui community.”