Mexico City, March 3 (IANS/EFE) Gunmen helped a suspect being taken to a hospital in a port city of Mexico to escape from a Red Cross ambulance, a spokesman for the humanitarian organisation said.

The ambulance was intercepted Monday by gunmen in two vehicles, a Red Cross spokesman told EFE, adding that about 10 masked men were involved in it. The incident took place at Tampico, a port city in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas.

'While the unit was travelling on Carlos Canseco and Alvaro Obregon streets, they were intercepted by two late-model SUVs, which caused the ambulance to crash into a light pole,' the Red Cross spokesman said.

The gunmen overpowered the police officers guarding the suspect.

'Fortunately, nothing happened to our colleagues,' the Red Cross spokesman said.

Tampico police cordoned off the area where the incident occurred.

The Mexican Red Cross called Monday on 'those groups operating on the fringes of the law' to avoid attacking its personnel in the wake of the killing of one of the organisation's volunteers in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state.

Maria Genoveva Rogers Lozoya, a 20-year-old dispatcher, was killed when gunmen killed a wounded man after opening fire inside the Red Cross building in Culiacan.

The incident at the Red Cross facility occurred Sunday.

Gunmen have killed people at medical facilities several times in recent years in some of Mexico's most violent cities, especially Tijuana, a border city located near San Diego, California.

Mexico has been plagued in recent years by drug-related violence blamed on powerful cartels.

--IANS/EFE

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