MEXICO: Four youngsters and a woman are gunned down in Ciudad Juarez

Record ID: 303977

  • Title: MEXICO: Four youngsters and a woman are gunned down in Ciudad Juarez
  • Date: 4th June 2010
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF DEAD BODIES OF YOUNGSTERS
  • Embargoed: 19th June 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Mexico
  • Country: Mexico
  • Reuters ID: LVA9JPXGYESFUQ4QLUAG4YQKD9E3
  • Story Text: Four youngsters are gunned down and a woman is shot dead in blood-soaked city of Ciudad Juarez as killings and drug violence continue to spiral.
    Four youngsters playing basketball were gunned down in Mexico's most violent city Ciudad Juarez on Wednesday (June 2), while another 14-year-old boy was injured.
    Gripped by terror and confusion, desperate mothers ran to see whether their children were among the victims whose bodies were left lying in the middle of the concrete court.
    Some neighbours said they heard loud gunshots for several minutes.
    "I heard them (shots) three blocks from my house and when I arrived I saw a lot of policemen here, a lot, but they were just looking, they weren't doing anything," said an unidentified local resident.
    Policemen arrived at the crime scene to collect the bodies for identification.
    Meanwhile in a separate event, the body of a 30 year-old woman was found next to a destroyed farm estate by neighbours.
    Gun shots were heard at dawn on Thursday (June 3) but the body was found hours later due to poor lighting.
    The body was removed by forensic scientists for identification and for further investigations.
    The manufacturing city across from El Paso, Texas, has become one of the world's deadliest cities as Mexico's top drug trafficker, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, fights smuggler Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, whose Juarez cartel has controlled the area for more than a decade.
    Ciudad Juarez is prized by drug gangs for its road and rail links deep into the United States, but Guzman has so far been unable to dislodge the Juarez cartel from the city. Drug killings are escalating to horrific levels with some 5,000 deaths over the past two years.
    Drug cartel violence has killed some 22,700 people since Calderon launched his drug war in Dec 2006.
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