Mexico president says soldiers did not confront cartel 'to avoid deaths'

FILE PHOTO: Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador speaks during a virtual U.S. global climate summit, at the National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico, April 22, 2021. REUTERS/Henry Romero/File Photo

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A military convoy in the Mexican state of Michoacan did not confront the members of a drug cartel who chased them out of town in broad daylight "to avoid deaths," the country's president said Thursday.

"Some used (the incident) to say what kind of country we live in (...) that there was no authority, how could the Army have been humiliated this way," said President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in a regular morning news conference.