More Good News from Ciudad Juarez

[SuperDuper! 230]

God help anyone who has to go for an embassy interview in CDJ!

Mexico partygoers die in attack

Gunmen have killed 13 people at a high school student party in the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez.

Two adults and 11 teenagers died, while about two dozen others were injured, as the attackers fired indiscriminately on partygoers, according to reports.

It was not immediately clear if anyone at the party was linked to the drug gangs that have made Ciudad Juarez one of the world's most dangerous cities.

At least 15 other people died in the city, on the US border, at the weekend.

Witnesses said the gunmen drove up to the house in several cars late on Saturday or in the early hours of Sunday.

Scattered bodies

They began shooting at people from outside the property before moving inside, and pursued some of the youngsters trying to escape over a fence.

“ The men drove up in four SUVs, went into the house and shot at everyone, you could hear the gunfire all around ”

Neighbour

The bodies of the victims - whose ages reportedly ranged from 15 to 20 - lay scattered around the house.

Unnamed police officials told AP news agency that witnesses had counted at least 15 attackers.

"The men drove up in four SUVs, they were well-armed. They went into the house and shot at everyone, you could hear the gunfire all around," said a neighbour at the scene, quoted by Reuters news agency.

Ciudad Juarez, straddling a highly lucrative drug-smuggling route into the US, is the scene of a vicious ongoing turf war between rival cartels.

Some 45,000 troops and extra police have been deployed to crack down on the gangs in the city, across the border from El Paso, Texas.

But the campaign has done little to curb the bloodletting - more than 7,000 people reportedly died in Mexican drug-related violence last year.

Beheadings, attacks on police, and shootings in clubs and restaurants are a daily occurrence in some regions.

In two of the worst attacks in 2009, gunmen stormed drug rehabilitation clinics in September, killing nearly 30 people.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8490366.stm