The personal secretary and an adviser to Mexico City’s mayor have been shot dead by gunmen on a motorcycle in a brazen daylight attack in a central part of the city.

Mayor Clara Brugada called the murder of her personal secretary Ximena Guzmán and adviser José Muñoz a “direct attack”. Brugada said in a statement that the attack took place in the Moderna neighborhood.

Authorities were investigating the motive and checking surveillance camera footage to identify the attackers, she said in a statement.

“There will be no impunity. Those responsible will be arrested and must face justice,” Brugada added.

Brugada holds the second most powerful political post in the country to President Claudia Sheinbaum, and they are allies in the Morena party.

The Mexico City police chief Omar García Harfuch said in a post on social media: “We deeply regret the loss of our colleagues … We will not allow this cowardly attack to go unpunished.”

Harfuch himself was the target of a previous attempted assassination in 2020, when gunmen from the Jalisco New Generation cartel ambushed his car in the centre of the city. He was shot three times; three people were killed.

That attack took place on one of the most upmarket stretches of Avenida Paseo de la Reforma, a 9-mile boulevard that cuts diagonally across the capital of Latin America’s second largest economy.

During her daily press conference, Sheinbaum – who served as Mexico City’s mayor before winning the presidency last year – said that the people believed responsible for their killings were riding on a motorcycle.

“It is a deplorable incident and we are going to give all the support that the mayor may need,” the president added.

Mexican politicians and their aides have often been targeted by organized crime factions, but such incidents are relatively rare in the capital, which has remained relatively calmer than many areas of the country.