A violent clash between gunman linked to Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s former drug cartel and a rival cartel left 19 people dead in northern Mexico over the weekend, authorities said.

The melee kicked off late Friday when gangsters aligned with El Chapo’s Sinaloa cartel exchanged gunfire with drug traffickers from the Juarez cartel and other gangs in the state of Chihuahua, Mexican police said.

On Saturday, authorities recovered 18 bodies at the scene of the firefight in the township of Madera. Another wounded man died a short while later at hospital, police said.

Mexican soldiers were deployed to the area and recovered a number of weapons, including two grenades.

In January 2019, a Brooklyn federal judge sentenced El Chapo to life in prison, which opened up a power vacuum in the cartel once considered the most prolific drug-dealing outfit in the world.

In October, gunman from the cartel turned the city of Culiacán into an urban war zone when Mexican authorities arrested the El Chapo’s son, Ovidio Guzman López.

Mexican soldiers cut him loose in order to “protect lives” amid intense gun battles between cartel gunmen — armed with military-grade weapons — and Mexican authorities.

With Post wires

Original Post https://nypost.com/2020/04/06/19-people-slain-in-mexican-gunbattle-involving-el-chapo-cartel/