This beautiful actress dubbed the ‘Queen of the South’ has been shot to death in Mexico while picking up her son from football practice.

Tania Mendoza, 35, was shot dead outside the Los Felinos football club, in the Lomas de Cortes neighbourhood in the city of Cuernavaca, which is the capital of Morelos state, in south-central Mexico on Tuesday 14th December at around 6.15pm.

Mendoza starred in the 2003 film ‘La mera mera reyna del sur’ (‘The Plain Queen of the South’), in which she played a strong and audacious woman who faced the police and managed to gain control of a drug cartel.

This was not her first encounter with violence, as she had been kidnapped in 2010 along with her husband and then six-month-old son. The three survived the incident.

In the latest incident, other parents were reportedly waiting for their children as well, and they ran for cover when the attack took place in a bid to hide from the bullets.

The police and medics responded to the scene, but Mendoza was already dead.

Friends of the actress and singer have written condolences to her family. One of her friends, identified only as Damaris in local reports, said: “Yesterday they took her life. Rest in peace, beautiful friend. May God keep you in his glory and let perpetual light shine for you.”

No suspects have been arrested at the time of writing.

The state government has yet to make a comment on the attacks, and the investigation into the brutal killing is ongoing.