Mexico City - The mayor and all police officers fled a small town in northern Mexico after a group of killers shot indiscriminately through its streets over the weekend, killing six people, the daily Reforma reported Tuesday.

The town of Villa Ahumada, some 150 kilometres south of Ciudad Juarez on the border to the United States, was attacked for six hours starting late Saturday by alleged drug traffickers looking for rivals.

Following the attack in which three police officers and three civilians were killed, the mayor, the security chief and the 23 local police officers left the village, while civilian residents barricaded themselves inside their homes.

Two prisoners held at the local police station were left abandoned in their cells.

"They left us alone. We were scared that they might return and execute us," one of the prisoners told Reforma.

Before he left the village, one local police officer complained that neither the army nor the Judicial Police responded to calls for help from local authorities when the attack started.

Several people were kidnapped by the attackers, who also took with them all the weapons in the police station, raided supermarkets and restaurants for food and money, and beat up attendants at one of the two petrol stations in town, from which they took abundant fuel. (dpa)