THE BORDER REPORT

Only a fool would assume women don't play a role in the splintering tensions of Mexico's cartel woes but this year's proving to be a particularly nasty one for femicide in northern Mexico. They've been strangled, dissolved in acid, one was thrown in front of a train, others, like this unidentified woman, were shot in the head, their bodies laid out on the street. A message to somebody, no different than the fate of their male counterparts.

In Chihuahua, a state whose largest city, Juárez, has become almost synonymous with femicide, 31 women have been murdered this year; or about a woman a week. The dead include Tanya Lozoya, a 15-year-old from the U.S., killed at a party with two men, and Alicia Enriquez, a woman who was shot several times in the head. Last year, 89 women; the year prior, 25.

Intelligence reports that I've obtained over the past few months show that most of last year's cases involved women accompanying their murdered husbands and boyfriends or were hunted down by rival cartels.

The state attorney general's office, under Patricia Gonzalez, has, somewhat, taken responsibility for a lack of investigation into the murdered women that have plagued Juárez since the early 1990s. Speaking before a commission in Chile that's been investigating the 2001 murders of three women, Gonzalez said that "before I took office, there were omissions and irregularities, not only in these cases but in others, and they have been resolved, the victims' mothers completely satisfied with the investigation."

What she ommitted from the context of course, were the twelve new cases of women that have disappeared this year, a tally kept by the ngo, Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa. Typical, the missing don't count; they're not dead. (Photos of victims, courtesy, DOJ.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Sinaloa, 22 women have been murdered this year, reports El Debate, and citing statistics from the state domestic violence center, seven of those were reportedly murdered by spouses. One woman was thrown in front of a train. A second had her home broken into and was shot at close range.

Then there's Tijuana. Last week, state police released information on three women who were found murdered, ages 17 to 22. Two were sisters, Nataly and Ivonne Medrano working at La Taberna strip club. They disappeared a year ago along with Laura Mejía, 22, a hairstylist. The three were murdered, their bodies dissolved in acid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two of El Ingenerio's men were popped by the Mexican Army and fingered in those murders. A third remains at large.

I wish I knew who this dead woman was. Judging from her clothing, she died the same day she posed for the shot above, a gunshot to the head and dumped in the street of some, so far nameless, city in Mexico.