The following information is from Amigos de las Mujeres de Juarez:

This year Ciudad Juarez has been engulfed in violence. Army troops patrol the streets and over 450 men have been murdered so far this year in cartel violence. In the midst of this, Casa Amiga Centro de Crisis A.C. has recorded seventeen cases of femicide from January 1, 2008 until May 5, 2008.  The victims have ranged in age from ten to forty-eight years old. One of the victims was eight and a half months pregnant and the foetus was also lost in the crime. Four of the seventeen victims could not be identified.

In each case where a perpetrator was suspected or found guilty the individual was male. Several of the cases included the sexual violation of female murder victims including the case in which a ten year old girl was found completely nude in her own home with a bag of condoms next to her deceased body. Many of the victims were murdered with knifes or guns. Many were stabbed multiple times in the neck, back and chest. Other victims sustained multiple bullet wounds also to the neck and head. One twenty-year-old victim was stabbed three times in the neck and eight times in the back. Another victim was shot to death and found with 31 bullet wounds throughout her body. Almost half of the victims left more than one child behind.

While some of the female victims were killed and left in their own homes, others were left in open fields surrounding Ciudad Juarez. One victim was killed in front of her own home, another was thrown out of a moving car and another was found in a bloody hotel room where 95 bullet shells were also discovered. In one case where the identity is still unknown, a female body was found in el Valle de Juarez where the victim was determined as having been dead over a month. The remains of this unknown victim were found half nude and devoured by animals. As a result of the state of the victim’s body, the cause of death has also yet to be established.

Despite the high number of murders that have already taken place this year in Ciudad Juarez the government’s efforts to investigate and determine the perpetrators of these crimes remains very low. According to WALO (Washington Office on Latin America) “flaws in the police and judicial institutions compounded by gender biases, resulted in a blatant failure of Mexican authorities to investigate, prosecute and punish those responsible for the murders, contributing to a climate of impunity.”