30 dead in worst weekend of Mexico violence this year
Aug 18 02:02 PM US/Eastern
More than 30 people died in the worst weekend of violence this year in the northern Mexico state of Chihuahua, the scene of daily drug gang turf wars, police said Monday.
Heavily-armed assassins killed nine people in separate incidents late Sunday in the border town of Ciudad Juarez, local police said, following the slaying of 21 people the previous night -- including a baby and a four-year-old boy -- at a village dance in the town of Creel.
Drug-related violence in Mexico has killed 2,682 people since the start of the year -- nine more than in all of 2007 -- with nearly half in Chihuahua state, daily El Universal reported Saturday.
Ciudad Juarez -- across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, where local drug gangs are battling the powerful Sinaloa cartel -- has the highest murder toll, with some 800 so far this year, according to an AFP count.
Federal authorities have deployed more than 36,000 soldiers across the country since early 2007, including 2,500 in Ciudad Juarez, in an effort to combat drug trafficking and related violence.
But the murder rate has climbed dramatically in two years, from 1,410 in 2006.
***************************************
The Mexican government needs to sort out its issues, clean up its house, take care of its citizens, protect the innocent. It is failing, and has failed.
******************
Mexico
crime
Posts
