Two dead in shootout near upscale Mexican resorts

Two suspected drug dealers were killed on Thursday in Mexico's Caribbean coast resort of Puerto Morelos, after gunmen from competing gangs staged a dramatic shootout near upscale hotels that sent foreign tourists scrambling to hide.

The shootings were the latest chapter in drug gang violence that has sullied the reputation of Mexico's resort-studded Caribbean coast as a once-tranquil oasis.

The prosecutors' office in Quintana Roo state said nobody else was seriously injured in the gun battle, but did not specify what other, non-serious injuries occurred.

Several cartels are fighting for the area's lucrative retail drug trade, including the Jalisco cartel and a gang allied with the Gulf cartel.

The Puerto Morelos shooting comes two weeks after a California travel blogger and a German tourist were killed in a similar shootout in the beach town of Tulum.

The Tulum gunfight also apparently broke out between two groups that operate street-level drug sales in the area, according to prosecutors.

There have been signs that the situation in Quintana Roo state, where all the resorts are located, was out of control months ago.

The administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has pinned its hopes on the so-called Maya Riviera, where it has announced plans to build an international airport and a stop for the Maya train, which will run in a loop around the Yucatan peninsula.