A mayor was shot dead in an area of southern Mexico where drug cartels are battling to control trafficking routes, local authorities said on Saturday.

Joel Bravo -- the mayor of San Miguel Amatitlan, a town of nearly 7,000 residents -- died in an armed attack, prosecutors in Oaxaca state said in a statement, without offering further details about the incident.

'In Oaxaca, we will not allow violence to prevail over the law or over the will of our communities,' state Governor Salomon Jara said in a post on X, condemning the killing.

Prosecutors said the police presence in the area had been stepped up and a tactical team deployed, in cooperation with federal forces, in order to track down the assailants.

The Jalisco Nueva Generacion and Sinaloa cartels are both active in Oaxaca, which borders the Pacific Ocean.

Nearly 100 mayors have been assassinated in Mexico since 2006, when drug violence exploded in the country.