Recent Violence in Mexico Share This /

Here's a rundown of news from Mexico last week:

• Eight people were killed Thursday night when gunmen opened fire at the “Las Torres” bar in Ciudad Juárez. Three more people were hospitalized in critical condition. Investigators don't know yet who was behind the attacks.
• In a hearing of the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Thursday, U.S. National Intelligence Director James Clapper called Mexican armed forces and police “inadequate to contain criminal violence.” He said that the country is facing “enormous challenges” in the drug war and institutional reform has been bogged down by “resource constraints, competing political priorities, and bureaucratic resistance.”
• A shootout in Zacatecas left one soldier and eight gunmen wounded Wednesday night. Two other soldiers were wounded and six assault rifles, three radios, and two bulletproof jackets were seized.
• Officials said that a man, who had gained notoriety in Chihuahua state after killing three members of La Linea, who had tried to extort money from him last month, was killed last Tuesday night along with his wife in his auto parts store in Puerto Palomas de Villa, near Ciudad Juárez. The couple's six-year-old daughter was a witness to the killings.
• Last Tuesday, the National Commission on Human Rights (CNDH) released its 2010 report to President Felipe Calderón. The CNDH reports that 6,916 cases of alleged rights violations were investigated in 2010, most of which were attributed to the military and local and federal police. According to the article, the report confirmed “24 cases of cruel or inhuman treatment, 21 cases of arbitrary detention, and 11 cases of torture.” In response to the report, the Mexican president said that human rights should never be violated and called organized crime "the main threat to human rights in our country."
• In the northern city of Reynosa last Tuesday, 44 Guatemalan migrants and 3 Mexican migrants were rescued when soldiers found them in a house they had been locked in by kidnappers. According to the Mexican Defense Department, no one was arrested.
• Three junior officers and seven enlisted soldiers were detained in Baja California last Tuesday and turned over to federal prosecutors in Mexico City the following day for alleged ties to drug traffickers.
• Two siblings and a sister-in-law of Josefina Reyes, a human rights activist killed last year, were kidnapped last Monday, according to Amnesty International . The group's van was intercepted by gunmen, who took them to an unknown location. Reyes' mother and niece were unharmed. Josefina’s brother, Rubén Reyes was also killed earlier this year. Rupert Knox, Mexico researcher at Amnesty International, said in an article posted on the group’s website that "We are gravely worried that Malena, Elías and Luisa are at risk of suffering the same fate as Ruben and Josefina Reyes, who appears to have been killed for daring to speak out against the explosion of violence in Mexico."

This post was written by CIP Intern Erin Shea