MEXICO: Drug hitmen terrorize towns on U.S. border, kill at least six in latest incident

Record ID: 303949

  • Title: MEXICO: Drug hitmen terrorize towns on U.S. border, kill at least six in latest incident
  • Date: 30th March 2010
  • Summary: PRAXEDIS, JUAREZ VALLEY, CHIHUAHUA, MEXICO (MARCH 29, 2010) (REUTERS) VARIOUS LVS OF BODIES SEEN LYING IN FIELD SOLDIERS SECURITY FORCES AT CRIME SCENE MORE OF SOLDIERS AND POLICEMEN MORE OF CRIME SCENE (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) ARMY SPOKESMAN ENRIQUE TORRES, SAYING:, SAYING: "We have received information about a series of violent crimes this weekend. Both the army and the federal police are carrying specific actions to decrease crime in that area. Checkpoints at entrances to the municipalities of el Valle (Juarez Valley) are being set up on behalf of the army. Aerial flights by military and police troops are being carried out and we are looking to decrease crime there." WINDOW WITH BULLET HOLES EXTERIOR OF POLICE STATION POLICE VEHICLES BULLET HOLES ON GATE POLICEMAN WEARING BALACLAVA POLICE VEHICLE CIUDAD JUAREZ, CHIHUAHUA, MEXICO (MARCH 28, 2010) (REUTERS) POLICE CAR AMBULANCE / POLICE CARS CORDONED OFF AREA AMBULANCE ARRIVING
  • Embargoed: 14th April 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Mexico
  • Country: Mexico
  • Reuters ID: LVA4XPSRIYX2ZP4S05ARP8FLLB2B
  • Story Text: Gunmen killed five men and a woman close to the town of Praxedis, located outside Ciudad Juarez's manufacturing zone, known as the Juarez Valley on Monday (March 29).
    Mexican drug hitmen are shooting up houses and terrorizing remote farming towns on the U.S. border, forcing residents to flee, as they try to secure key trafficking routes into the United States.
    In the latest flare-up of border drug violence, the victims, who were in their 30s, were placed in a row on their knees and executed in cold blood on an empty plot of land on a highway leading to the cotton and alfalfa-growing town of El Porvenir.
    Residents in this town say dozens of people have been killed this year. Local police have fled and many residents are seeking asylum in Texas or crossing the border to stay with relatives, they say.
    President Felipe Calderon has staked his political future on reining in the drug killings that worry investors, tourists and Washington. He has sent 8,000 soldiers and federal police to the Ciudad Juarez area alone to try to defeat the cartels.
    But the area outside the city's manufacturing zone, known as the Juarez Valley, is rapidly becoming a no-man's land where despite an army presence, people are abandoning towns and politicians are too scared to campaign for local elections in July. Journalists rarely venture into the area.
    Troops manned checkpoints around Praxedis and El Porvenir at the weekend.
    "We have received information about a series of violent crimes this weekend. Both the army and the federal police are carrying specific actions to decrease crime in that area. Checkpoints at entrances to the municipalities of el Valle (Juarez Valley) are being set up on behalf of the army. Aerial flights by military and police troops are being carried out and we are looking to decrease crime there."
    Masked, heavily-armed men are also torching homes, firing on shops, police stations and businesses and have killed at least three local politicians in a cluster of towns near the deadly drug war city of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas.
    Residents say a rumor that drug gangs have given people living in El Porvenir two months to leave or be killed has left the town in a state of psychosis. Schools are half-empty, businesses are shuttered and houses, farmland and family cars stand abandoned in the scorching hot cinder-block town.
    Meanwhile in Ciudad Juarez one policeman was killed and two injured after four hitmen were arrested.
    Bloodshed has exploded around Ciudad Juarez as local cartel boss Vicente Carrillo Fuentes fights off an offensive by Mexico's No. 1 fugitive drug lord, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.
    The recent killing of two Americans and a Mexican linked to the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juarez sparked outrage in Washington. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton flew to Mexico this week and pledged to help broaden its drug war with social programs.
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