Americans are too afraid to visit bloody Juarez

updated 3:06 p.m. ET Oct. 15, 2008

EL PASO, Texas - Mexican officials are trying to persuade Americans to visit Ciudad Juarez, touting the city in a new billboard campaign as a "land of encounters." But on the northern side of the border, that sounds like a cruel joke.

More than 1,100 people have been killed this year in Juarez, population 1.5 million, in a drug-related bloodbath so staggering that the city has been declared off-limits to U.S. soldiers looking to go bar-hopping; the public hospital in El Paso, Texas, is seeing a spillover of the wounded; and residents on the American side are afraid to cross over to visit family, shop or conduct business.

"We all like to make money, but the money I was making isn't worth it," said Fernando Apodaca, who spent at least one day a week for the past 18 years working in Juarez as an auto industry consultant. After his Cadillac Escalade sport utility vehicle was seized in a carjacking last month, Apodaca vowed he wouldn't go over the border again.

"I had a gun to my face. There's no law over there," he said.

Juarez, situated just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, has had more murders this year than New York and Chicago together had in all of 2007 — and those two cities have seven times the population of Juarez. Last weekend alone, Juarez had 37 killings.

Violence coincides with drug offensive
Juarez has always been a rough town, but one where many Americans felt safe enough to play, shop and work. Violence began to mount early this year after Mexico's president launched a national offensive against drug lords.

Tomas Bravo / Reuters file A police officer cordons off a crime scene where four men were gunned down in a drive-by shooting in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in August.

Initially, the bloodshed involved drug cartels fighting each other. Then, military troops, law enforcement officers and government officials became major targets.

Assassinations have become more brazen and more and more innocents have been killed. Masked gunmen stormed a drug rehab center in August and killed eight people. Six men were gunned down last weekend at a family party. A 12-year-old girl was shot and killed in June while riding with two men targeted by hitmen. The second-in-command of the Juarez police department was killed in a hail of more than 50 bullets near his home in May.

Armed robberies, carjackings and kidnappings for ransom are also rampant.

"The government isn't in control, and that makes for a very dangerous situation," Tony Payan, an expert on border crime at the University of Texas-El Paso. "Anyone at any time can commit a crime and anyone at any time can become a victim."

Shooting victims seen at El Paso hospital
While the bloodshed hasn't yet spilled over to the American side, the violence is costing El Paso, a city of about 600,000 where only 17 homicides were reported in 2007.

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