Violence in Mexican state of Chiapas

Violence has broken out in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.

Around one thousand Mexican police officers launched an offensive against right-wing paramilitary groups in the region.

But they were forced to withdraw when they were fired on and attacked with stones by local people.

Chiapas one of Mexico's poorest states has been the scene of increasing violence between the left wing Zapatistas and right wing paramilitary movements since the Zapatistas launched an armed struggle for indigenous rights in 1994.

In 1997 paramilitaries killed forty-five indigenous people in a refugee camp.

Mexican authorities say that at least eighty suspected perpetrators of the massacre are still at large in Chiapas.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service