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Hopeless in Juarez

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Reporter Monica Ortiz Uribe reports on Mexico’s most violent city – Juarez. Earlier this week 16 people were killed at a birthday celebration. Residents are running out of patience with police…and running out of hope that anything will change.

• Monica Ortiz Uribe’s photos from Ciudad Juarez

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MARCO WERMAN: The Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez has been in shock all week.  The city just across the border from El Paso is used to rampant drug related violence, but a mass killing last Sunday was out of the ordinary, even for Juarez.  That’s because most of the victims were teenagers who were attending a birthday party in their own neighborhood.  In the midst of funerals and wakes, residents and officials are struggling to make sense of what happened.  Monica Ortiz Uribe has more from Juarez?

MONICA ORTIZ URIBE: Seconds before his 15-year-old nephew was carried out of a funeral wake, Raul Segovia’s eyes were filled with rage.  We are sick and tired of so much violence, he said.  We leave our homes with fear.  We go out and don’t know if we’re coming back.  As family members carried out his nephew’s gray casket, Segovia’s rage succumbed to sorrow.  Segovia called out to his nephew as the boy’s mother sobbed uncontrollably.  Don’t take him, she said, please don’t take him, he’s mine, he’s my son.  It has been a week of heavy mourning for this south Juarez neighborhood.  Sunday some 15 gunmen blocked off a street here with four SUV’s.  They entered three side-by-side homes where a birthday party was under way and opened fire; 16 people died, 12 seriously injured.  Funeral vigils were held during the week in private homes on the same street where the killings occurred.  Jose Luis Aguilar Rangel is the father of another slain teenager.  I think 90% of Juarezans would flee this city if we had the opportunity he said.  The Mexican government has made a grand effort to respond to the murders.  President Felipe Calderon condemned the attack in a press conference from Japan.  Less than 48 hours after the crime, police arrested an alleged member of the deadly Azteca gang, saying he had confessed to being one of the gunmen.  Some authorities have said the killings have links to drug trafficking and gang activity, while others says most of the dead were innocent victims.  David Shirk studies Mexico as a fellow for the Woodrow Wilson Center.  He was visiting Juarez when the massacre occurred and met with both victims’ families and authorities.

DAVID SHIRK:  When you see the violence playing out on the streets of places like Ciudad Juarez, we’re talking about ordinary people who are getting caught up in the crossfire.

URIBE: In the past two years, more than 4,000 people have been killed in Juarez, the result of warring drug cartels and the government’s attempt to eliminate them.  The presence of thousands of federal police and military has failed to remedy the situation.  Howard Campbell, and Anthropology Professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, thinks the Mexican government still has a long way to go.

HOWARD CAMPBELL:  The situation in Juarez is completely out of control and chaotic.  The government does not control the situation, neither do the drug traffickers.  Anything goes at this point.

URIBE: As the last of the caskets were loaded onto the hearses, rain poured over weeping relatives, some with red carnations in their trembling fingers.  Raul Segovia said a bitter goodbye to his nephew.  We scream for help, he said, but no one will answer.  For The World, I’m Monica Ortiz Uribe in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

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