(December 4, 2008)—Violence in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico has claimed the lives of at least three U.S. residents in the past there weeks, adding to the death toll in a nearly yearlong drug cartel war that has left more than 1,400 dead.
The latest victim was a 32-year-old American woman who Mexican police say was shot several times Tuesday as she stood in front of a home in Juarez.
She was taken back to El Paso, but she died en route to Thomason Hospital.
Two other U.S. residents, Roberto Martinez and Ruth Sagredo Velasco, were both killed in a barrage of at least 20 shots from AK-47 assault rifles on Nov. 22 as they drove in a funeral procession for Sagredo's sister.
Juarez is a sprawling city of about 2 million that's been at the center of the bloody fight between the cartels over the city's lucrative drug and human smuggling trade.
Thousands of Mexican soldiers and additional police have been stationed in the city, but the fighting has only intensified.
George W. Grayson, an expert on Mexico expert at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, said violence in Juarez and other Mexican border cities has become so widespread in the past year that innocent bystanders are routine victims.
Grayson said he doubts American citizens or those with ties to the U.S. are specific targets. Instead, he says they're just "in the wrong place at the wrong time."
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