Mexico City, Jun 21 (AP) Two Jesuit priests have been killed inside a church in a remote mountainous area of northern Mexico, the religious order's Mexican branch announced Tuesday.

Javier Campos Morales and Joaquin Cesar Mora Salazar were killed Monday inside the church in Cerocahui, Chihuahua.

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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 Society of Jesus in Mexico demanded justice and the return of the men's bodies. It said gunmen had taken them from the church.

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The Chihuahua state prosecutor's office had not commented.

“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.”

The Society of Jesus is an order of the Roman Catholic Church. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)