Hit men gun down 13 students at party
Source: Agencies |
February 2, 2010, Tuesday
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SUSPECTED drug hit men burst into a party and killed 13 high school students in Ciudad Juarez on Sunday, the latest massacre in one of the world's deadliest cities, the Mexican army said.
Gunmen jumped out of sport utility vehicles and fired at the students, who were celebrating victory in a local American football championship, in a house in the city across the border from El Paso, Texas, in the early hours of Sunday.
Pools of blood collected in the street outside the house.
"The men drove up in SUVs, they were well-armed. They went into the house and shot at everyone, you could hear the gunfire all around," a neighbor at the scene said.
Army spokesman Enrique Torres said the victims were between 15 and 20 years old, and an additional 17 partygoers were wounded in the shooting, some critically.
"They were about 15 men, they closed off the surrounding streets and began shooting at the house as they moved inside," Torres said.
It was not clear why the gunmen attacked the students. But drug hit men have attacked parties in the city, searching for rivals, while police have reported that some teenagers have been involved in kidnapping others.
Ciudad Juarez is the bloodiest city in Mexico's drug war as rival cartels fight over markets and control of smuggling routes into the United States.
Violence is escalating even as federal police and soldiers patrol the streets. Some 2,650 people were killed in drug violence in Ciudad Juarez last year and cartel murders have jumped since the start of 2010.
Mexico is the key transit route for US-bound cocaine from South America.
Gunmen jumped out of sport utility vehicles and fired at the students, who were celebrating victory in a local American football championship, in a house in the city across the border from El Paso, Texas, in the early hours of Sunday.
Pools of blood collected in the street outside the house.
"The men drove up in SUVs, they were well-armed. They went into the house and shot at everyone, you could hear the gunfire all around," a neighbor at the scene said.
Army spokesman Enrique Torres said the victims were between 15 and 20 years old, and an additional 17 partygoers were wounded in the shooting, some critically.
"They were about 15 men, they closed off the surrounding streets and began shooting at the house as they moved inside," Torres said.
It was not clear why the gunmen attacked the students. But drug hit men have attacked parties in the city, searching for rivals, while police have reported that some teenagers have been involved in kidnapping others.
Ciudad Juarez is the bloodiest city in Mexico's drug war as rival cartels fight over markets and control of smuggling routes into the United States.
Violence is escalating even as federal police and soldiers patrol the streets. Some 2,650 people were killed in drug violence in Ciudad Juarez last year and cartel murders have jumped since the start of 2010.
Mexico is the key transit route for US-bound cocaine from South America.
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