Several Mexican media outlets have announced that the federal police murdered 16 unarmed people in two separate attacks in January.

This information directly contradicts an account offered by the federal government that the deaths might have resulted from friendly fire.

On Sunday, the media agencies Aristegui Noticias, Univision and Proceso all published similar accounts of the killings that occurred in Apatzingan, a region which is located in the western state of Michoacan.

This latest revelation is in line with previous highly profiled cases of police abuses in Mexico. In September of 2014, the disappearance of 43 students from Rural Teachers' College of Ayotzinapa in Iguala, Guerrero caused massive protests in and outside of the country.The missing students were alleged to be abducted by local police before being handed over to a drug gang that proceeded to kill them and incinerate their remains.

The notorious incident has seriously affected Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's approval ratings.

According to RT News, the people killed in Apatzingan in January were by and large members of vigilante groups created to counter the region's powerful drug gangs. The vigilantes had been protesting their lack of pay from the federal government, which had co-opted them into a new rural police force last year.

The federal police has offered no comment on Sunday’s media reports.

As detailed in Reuters, The National Security Commission, an agency which has the power to oversee the federal police, stated on Saturday that it had received an anonymous video "from which one can infer the alleged excessive use of force or abuse of power by federal policemen in Apatzingan."

A spokesman for the interior ministry asserted that authorities always investigate allegations of police abuse when there is sufficient evidence. It was not stated, however, if an investigation in this case was currently under way.