Last year, the number of murders in the city which due to Mexico’s drug war, has become synonymous with death, totaled 3,111. Juarez saw 2,643 murders in 2009, and 1,587 in 2008.
Most of the violence can be attributed to the ongoing struggle between the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels for control of the smuggling routes into the U.S.
Unfortunately, many police officers, soldiers, journalists, and bystanders have fell victim to the cartel violence as well. 306 women were murdered in Juarez during 2010, a grisly new record for the city.
In addition to the murders being fueled by an ongoing war between the Juarez and Sinoloa Cartels, thousands of kidnappings have occurred in and around Juarez over the last two years. Also, bank robberies and carjackings have now become an everyday occurrence in the city. In short, chaos reigns.
Of course, the shocking violence is not limited to Juarez, but has spread throughout every region of Mexico.
In October, the newly-opened police headquarters in Los Ramones in the state of Nuevo Leon was hit with more than 1,000 bullets and six grenades. The attack lasted a harrowing 20 minutes. Incredibly, no officers were injured in the assault.
The next day, Los Ramones Mayor Santos Salinas told the Noroeste newspaper: “Fortunately, those who were inside the building threw themselves on the ground and nobody was hurt.”
However, the attack resulted in the resignation of the town’s entire 14-member police force.
The new headquarters had been opened only three days earlier.
Nuevo Leon, has been devastated by the ongoing war between the Gulf and Zetas drug cartels, and Monday’s attack was the second on a police station in the region in less than a week.
In 2008, Villa Ahumada Police Chief Jesus Blanco Cano was shot to death after only one day on the job. The town is located in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua which is the territory of the very violent and powerful Juarez drug cartel.
The town had been without a police chief for months, after a band of 70 gunmen raided the town and murdered the previous chief, along with two of his officers as well as several civilians. After the attack, the rest of the town´s 20-officer police force resigned.
Since December 2006, more than 30,000 people have been killed in Mexico’s drug war.
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