Murder capital of the world
NOT WORTH A GLANCE: Mexican cafe diners pay no heed to headless gang war victim on pavement. PHOTOS: Reuters/Getty
By Dan McDougall in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, 22/08/2010
SINCE the Afghan confict began nine years ago 2,004 NATO troops have been killed. But along the Mexican/US border a staggering TEN TIMES that number have been murdered in the past two years alone, making it the DEADLIEST battlefield on earth. This week the News of the World went to Mexico's Wild West where rival gangs slaughter people wholesale - all for a slice of the multi-billion profits from Britain and America's booming cocaine habit:
IT'S a Sunday picnic scene like nowhere else on earth.
Under a searing desert sun the headless body of a drug trafficker bleeds on to the pavement, staining it deep scarlet. Alongside his earthly remains local families unwrap sandwiches, drink iced tea and eat chilli hot-dogs under umbrellas, barely blinking at the absolute horror in their midst.
Remarkably the assassination, in the very heart of a bustling market town, barely breaks the flow of conversation and daily life.
Just another corpse on the most violent streets in the world.
Most surprising of all, this astonishing scene is not playing out in the militant quarters of Kabul or Baghdad - but less than a mile from the American border.
On patrol with Mexican federal cops in these badlands - where dead bodies litter the streets like discarded cigarette ends and coffin makers work non-stop seven days a week - we uncover a terrifying story much closer to home than you think.
For, with the fall of Colombia's infamous drug cartels the cravings of
Britain's one million cocaine users are met by Mexico's new generation of gangsters who have ruthlessly taken over the trafficking from South America to London, Manchester and Glasgow.
The US Drug Enforcement Agency says one in three lines of cocaine snorted in the UK, from council estate front rooms to private Mayfair clubs, has passed through the rising Mexican kingpins.
The medieval feud for control of the trade knows no boundaries. In the under-siege city of Ciudad Juarez even children, grandmothers, pregnant women, priests and paramedics have been gunned down in anger, all to ensure a line of cocaine in the world's richest capitals.
"Why in God's name are you crossing here?" says the American border official quietly as I hand over my passport to cross into Mexico's most deadly city. In my hand he presses the official US Travel Advisory note warning travellers to AVOID Juarez at all costs. It is now officially the world's most dangerous place to live.
Full Article: Murder capital of the world | Bleeding corpses have become a common sight on Mexico's drug-riddled streets. | News Of The World
