43 dead in three days as Mexico violence escalates
Mon Aug 18, 7:44 PM ET
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AFP) -
At least 43 people died in violent attacks in the last three days in the northern Mexico state of Chihuahua, the scene of ongoing drug gang turf wars, police said Monday.
Thirteen males, aged between 18 and 41, died in separate attacks on Monday, mostly in the flashpoint city of Ciudad Juarez on the US border, local police said.
Assassins killed nine people overnight Sunday in the city, following the slaying of 21 people the previous night, including 14 in a massacre at a family gathering in the western Chihuahua town of Creel.
Violence has escalated throughout the country since President Felipe Calderon, who took office at the end of 2006, launched a military crackdown on drug trafficking.
A baby was one of the 14 murdered in Saturday's shooting in Creel, believed to be part of a drug gang feud.
"Armed men, travelling in at least three vans and carrying heavy-duty weapons, fired on some 20 people who were leaving the town's dance hall," local police said.
Creel, in the Sierra Tarahumara mountains near Mexico's Copper Canyon, is on the main drug route from Mexico to the United States, but had previously registered only one violent death this year.
The assassins used AK-47 rifles, often used by drug gang hitmen, but authorities gave no motive for the crime.
Seven others were killed overnight Saturday, including five in Ciudad Juarez, one in the state capital Chihuahua and another in the town of Guadalupe.
Ciudad Juarez -- across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas -- has the highest murder toll of the country this year, with some 800 killed, according to an AFP count.
The Juarez drug cartel is fighting a turf war for control of Chihuahua state and its key drug routes to the United States with the Sinaloa cartel, from the neighboring state further south.
More than 3,000 families have fled Ciudad Juarez for the United States this year, a border expert said last week, following a deadly attack on a mass in a drug rehabilitation center in which gunmen killed nine people.
Drug-related violence throughout 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.
Federal authorities have deployed more than 36,000 soldiers across the country since early 2007, including 2,500 in Ciudad Juarez, as part of efforts to combat drug trafficking and related violence.
The US government has approved a 1.6-billion-dollar, three-year package of anti-drug assistance to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean known as the Merida Initiative, a large part of which is expected to strengthen Calderon's efforts.
Ya think it won't affect you? Thoughts? From where you live - who can you build a bridge to?
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