At least eight people were killed in a wave of violence that rocked the Mexican border city of Juarez on Thursday, including a local radio host, according to officials and witnesses.
In the first instance, a jail riot claimed the lives of two prisoners and injured four others, according to a statement from the state’s prosecutor for Chihuahua, which encompasses Ciudad Juarez.
The Sinaloa cartel, whose former leader, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, is presently serving a life sentence in the United States, was blamed for the incident by local media.
Later on in the day, an assault on a Juarez grocery store resulted in the deaths of two women and the injury of another. Along with two other buildings, the business was also burned down.
That evening, when they participated in a promotional activity outside a pizza, four radio station personnel were fatally murdered by assailants.
The presenter, a manager, and two other station employees were recognised as the deceased by workers who responded to the site, according to a witness.
Chihuahua Governor Maru Campos posted on Twitter, “I deeply regret the loss of human lives in this atrocity against Ciudad Juarez,” and added that state and federal authorities had been sent in to restore order in the 1.5 million-person city, which is located just across the border from El Paso, Texas.
Only two days had passed before similar acts of violence erupted in the eastern and central states of Guanajuato and Jalisco, respectively.
After the deaths on Thursday, many areas of Juarez were empty. Some institutions cancelled classes on Friday, and the neighborhood’s business organisation urged the government to take more action against organised crime.