7-year-old boy murdered in Juarez

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On Friday evening, 7-year-old Raul Ramirez Ramirez was shot to death in the street along with his father. Police found 18 spent shell casings near their bodies.

The murdered father and son were killed on a particularly bloody weekend in Juarez. At least 14 murders were discovered in the city over a two day period. Many of the victims were cut to shreds with AK-47s.

Early on Saturday morning, armed assailants abducted two young women from their home, and drove them to the desert where the women, ages 18 and 20, were both shot in the head. Only moments later, their house was set ablaze.

The war currently raging between the Sinaloa and Juarez Cartels has resulted in more than 4,000 murders in Juarez in less than two years.

Despite the presence of 5,000 Mexican troops now patrolling the city, the cartels are killing people at the rate of more than 200 per month.

The situation has become so hopeless that the Juarez business community is asking the United Nations to set up peacekeeping operations in the city.

Ari Gaitanis, spokesman for the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations told the Associated Press: "Obviously, the situations in Haiti and Mexico are very different, but one of our peacekeeping missions [in 2007] in Haiti involved restoring the rule of law in parts of the capital city that criminal gangs controlled.”

Gaitanis continued: "Such a mission has be to be defined, and often involves much more than U.N. peacekeepers helping to patrol streets. These things don't happen overnight. It could be a long or short process."

The proposal for the insertion of U.N. peacekeepers has support on both sides of the border.

El Paso city councilman Beto O'Rourke has welcomed the move in hopes that it will bring much needed national attention to the unabated violence.

O‘Rourke told the El Paso Times: "I think El Paso and Juárez, and I have to say both cities because we are one, have been failed by our leadership.”

O'Rourke added: "You can make the argument that what is happening in Juárez is similar to what is happening in the Gaza Strip or Bosnia. The U.S. has intervened there, but not here. If our leadership is not going to do anything, hopefully the United Nations will."

Soledad Maynez, president of the Ciudad Juárez Association of Maquiladoras, told the AP that her organization has asked the U.N for help because the both the leadership of her city, as well as that of the federal government have thus far failed to curb the incredible violence.

She also had an ominous warning for the U.S.

Maynez said: "We know that sooner or later, the violence will spill over into our sister city of El Paso, Texas.”

In addition to federal troops being dispatched to the city, the entire Juarez police force was fired and a new one hired because of rampant police corruption. However, the cartels continue to run the and murder at will.

 

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