Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua - Nowhere is the violence worse than in Ciudad Juarez, which sits on Mexico’s Border with the U.S.
Gary Tuchman takes us to the streets of the city for an up-close look at the personal toll the drug war is taking on the people there.
This man has just watched gunmen ambush his brother and murder him.
In one of the most frightening cities in the world, Juarez, Mexico, a place where 16 young people can get killed at a party by narco-traffickers who apparently made a mistake and targeted the wrong house.
And few are stunned by it.
Narco-traffickers are at war in this city of 1.5 million law abiding citizens be damned.
This past weekend, we went to the funeral of an American woman who worked at The U.S. Consulate in Juarez. She was shot and killed, along with her American
husband and her unborn child. It happened right in front of the Juarez Mayor's office - a stone's throw away from El Paso, Texas...
Over the next few hours, we saw first-hand what has led to Juarez having the Highest murder rate in the world..
There is no such thing as a quiet weekend day here in Ciudad Juarez. About one hour ago, police got a call that inside this murky river, there was a body.
When we got to the scene, they indeed found a body, with a bullet hole right inthe forehead. Behind me, members of the military with guns. These guys will probably be at another murder later today.
We didn't realize how quickly we'd see them again.
Only 10 minutes after we left that river, a 5 minute drive away, this is the Scene. 2 men in that gold pickup, 6 gunmen came up to them, the driver ran
Out. He was shot and now he's under that tarp.
Why was he targeted? We may never know. This is the brother of the victim, who Was also in the pickup. The gunmen left him unharmed..
We were just going to the tire shop to pick up a tire and nothing more.
30 minutes later another execution style killing. A worker in an electrical Shop shot multiple times at close range.
Neighbors are afraid to talk about what they know in fear the murderers will Come after them.
Did you hear anything?
No, no, nada.
It's disturbing how routine this starts feeling. We see the same police Officers, the same troops. No matter how nice the neighborhood is, no matter that if it's the middle of the day; if the narco-traffickers are targeting you, Or if they mistake you for someone they want to target, you're almost as good as dead.
We're then told that something horrible has happened in the desert outside of Juarez.
We drive on a gravel road into the middle of nowhere...to see what police Discovered from an anonymous tip.
What the authorities found here was a mass grave. This hold right here had 5 Decomposed bodies, one of them without a head.
It had been less than four hours since we arrived in Juarez when we saw this Scene..the body of a man shot more than a dozen times at close range in the backseat of a car. Outside the police line, a woman who didn't want to talk Sobbed.
This woman was one house down from where the execution took place.
Did you hear the gunshots? You're right next door to what happened?
Yeah, but no, we didn't hear anything.
Would you be afraid to tell me if you did hear something though?
Well, yes.
So many people are afraid here.
After a sunny Saturday afternoon in Juarez you see why.
It's only a matter of time before this war floods over the entire 2,000+ mile US-Mexico border. And then across the US itself.
ReplyDeleteOh I think you're a bit behind, hahaha. The war from Mexico has already touched Us soil even way before this came to light. El Paso, Brownsville, Phar.. Sicarios are on the Us side already, don't necesarily mean Mexicans.. But Mexican-Americans aswell.. Kids, teenagers.. You should see Nuevo Laredo, 16 year old kids, tatted up to their nose representing M13 and all sorts of gangs.. All contracted and affiliated with Zetas and Sinaloa cartel.
ReplyDeleteThere is a drug war involving American troops being fought in Afghanistan where 75% to 90% of the world's opium base is grown and finances the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Is this a Mexican problem? Our kids can score marijuana grown in California, Oregon, Tennessee or Canada in minutes in our middle schools and high schools (and our kids will probably laugh and tell you its better than anything grown in Mexico). What does this have to do with the 2,000 mile U.S.-Mexico border? What about the Bloods and the Crips who have fought to control drug sales in the ghettos for decades or the Hell's Angel's and Mongols who fight to keep poor, white rural America freshly supplied with domestic and imported crystal meth, aren't they all "sicarios". What about Oxy-Contin and Vicodin? They come from doctor's offices and pharmacies. Some of you are so fixated on the southern border that you have lost focus on our problems and accountability for our own actions and addictions here at home.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't of said it better..
ReplyDeleteKudos