CIUDAD JUÃREZ – The murder toll in this border city is expected to rise this year for the first time since the waning days of a bloody drug war five years ago.
A spike in homicides between July and October will push the city’s murder rate to more than 500 for the year despite a decline in murders in the last two months, according to statistics from the Chihuahua state prosecutor’s office.
Homicides in the city had fallen each year since 2010 to an eight-year low in 2015, below the 500 mark.
Forty-five miles south of Las Cruces, this gritty town was known mostly for its assembly factories that produce goods destined for the U.S. market – printer cartridges, computers, refrigerators, auto parts and medical devices – until it became infamous as the most violent city in the world.
Between 2008 and 2011, rival criminal organizations – the Sinaloa and Juárez cartels – battled for control of lucrative drug trafficking routes and plunged the city into murderous chaos.
Monthly homicides in the metropolitan area surged to more than 350 at the peak of the violence in 2010, when the annual murder toll topped 3,600, according to the state prosecutor’s office.
Law enforcement on both sides of the border attribute the midyear spike in homicides to several factors.
Elections in July ushered in new city and state governments. New political parties at both levels took office in October – which in Mexico can mean a significant vacuum of power.
“We had a considerable spike in crime in October, especially in execution-style murders,” said Jorge Nava López, Chihuahua’s top prosecutor in Ciudad Juárez. “Organized crime does take advantage of the vacuum of power that exists during that month when there is a transition in government. That is real. The justice system keeps working, but there are no leaders in the structure.”
Criminal organizations continue to operate on both sides of the border but carry out the bulk of their violence on the Mexican side, where institutions are not as strong. Law enforcement and other experts say gangs are fighting not just for control of the plaza, but also for the local drug market.
“Some of the violence going on is still the Sinaloa and Juárez cartels in battles,” said Will Glaspy, special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in West Texas and New Mexico. “Some of it is possibly due to methamphetamine being distributed in Ciudad Juárez. Some of that we think, too, is infighting within the Juárez cartel.”
Molly Molloy, a research librarian and border specialist at New Mexico State University, for years has documented trends in violence in Ciudad Juárez.
When something happens, like a spate of gang fights, the consequences are exacerbated by the city’s fundamental flaws, she said: the lack of rule of law, adequate infrastructure, education, housing and good-paying jobs.
“Violence hits a place like Juárez hard because it’s extremely vulnerable,” she said.
