A pregnant woman was killed in a shoot-out at a military checkpoint in Aldama town in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, officials said Friday.
"We still do not know whether the shots that caused her death were from soldiers. That is what we are trying to establish," Eduardo Esparza, spokesman of the Chihuahua state public prosecutor's office, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
According to preliminary reports, the four-months-pregnant woman, 22, was in a car with her mother when the gun fight broke out Thursday. A short while earlier, her 35-year-old cousin was shot at and wounded by unknown attackers.
Esparza said the cousin claimed he "sought refuge from the men chasing him at the military base" and the pregnant woman was in a car behind him.
Military officers said they signalled for the car to halt, but the woman was speeding and did not stop. The soldiers said they aimed at the car's tyres.
"They say they (soldiers) were themselves shot from a pick-up truck," spokesman Esparza said.
Since President Felipe Calderon launched an aggressive crackdown on drug gangs in 2006, many innocent bystanders have been killed "by mistake" by Mexican military officers.
More than 1,300 people have been killed this year in Chihuahua state, which is close to the US border, in incidents linked to organized crime. The national figure is more than 5,500.