| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico | July 2008 
Mexico: 11 Murders in 6 Hours
 Martin Barillas - Spero News
go to original
| | Pink wooden crosses are seen in the place where the corpses of eight murdered women were found in 2001, in Ciudad Juarez Mexico. A child and woman were raped and murdered this week in Ciudad Juarez, bringing to 17 the women killed so far this year in this city bordering the United States, and to more than 400 since 1993, authorities said Thursday. (AFP/Alfredo Estrella) | | |
In Ciudad Juarez, the Mexican border town nestled across the line from El Paso, Texas, there were at least eleven murders in less than six hours on July 19, according to official reports from the state of Chihuahua. The first victims that evening were a couple - an unidentified woman and an unidentified man. At least eighty expended ammunition cartridges were found near the bodies. At about the same time, three other persons were cut down by gunfire in another neighborhood of a city plagued by drug-related violence.
Two hours later, at approximately 11 pm, a twenty-five year-old man was shot to death by a group of assailants armed with 9 mm weapons, while at approximately the same time police received reports of the murder of another person at a bar.
Murderers continued to rack up victims into the early hours of July 20, harvesting a twenty-year-old woman and her thirty-year-old male companion at just past 1 am. In the Galeana neighborhood of Ciudad Juarez, Angel Fernando Robles Urbina was cut down by killers who had burst into his home.
Police officials registered the last act of a overture of violence at 2:05 am after officers discovered a decapitated body wrapped in blankets. The head was found in a plastic bag nearby bearing an apparently obscene threat issued to rival drug gangs "Para los Chapos monta perros" - (For the short guys: mount dogs).
The murders occured within a period of six hours despite the presence of soldiers and federal police forces sent to Chihuahua and other Mexican states by the president to stem drug violence. According to Mexican daily "El Universal", some 2,253 persons have fallen to drug-related violence this year. More than half of these took place in just two states in Mexico: Sinaloa and Chihuahua. Mexican authorities are attributing the murders to rivalry between gangs who are disputing drug-routes to the US.
Martin Barillas is a former US diplomat, who also worked as a democracy advocate and election observer in Latin America. |
|
| |
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us