Julian Aguilar is a brilliant journalist and photographer in Ciudad Juarez. He’s lived there long enough to know some stuff, like how to stay alive.
Here’s a piece he wrote for Texas Tribune titled Is Ciudad Juárez on the brink of a new gang war?
This year’s violence — up to 455 murders as of last month — has some in this sprawling, industrial city on edge yet again.
The local police and the state attorney general blame small-ball heroin and meth peddlers looking to rid themselves of their competition.
“We don’t think we are, by any means, at risk of returning to the way Juarez was before,” said Adrian Sanchez Contreras, the spokesman for the municipal police. “… There have been [more] homicides this month, but it’s because of these [retail drug markets] and the disputes between these groups and distribution of these drugs.”
Others attribute it to a shift in political power: In June, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, lost the Juarez mayor’s office to Hector Cabada, a former television personality who ran as an independent. In the state capital of Chihuahua, the rival National Action Party won the governorship that same month; the PRI had held power since 1998.
“The government-criminal relationships that have been in existence over the past six years — whether illicit collusion between the two sides or more benign patterns of interaction and mutual understanding — have been upset,” Patrick Corcoran, an analyst for InSight Crime, a think tank that analyzes crime and policy in Latin America, wrote last week. “… The recent spasms of violence are evidence of different groups jockeying for position under a new political order.”
Well, those two things aren’t mutually exclusive. Experts estimate Juarez’ domestic drug market to be worth between $200 million and $500 million a year. If even a nominal chunk of that gets kicked back to the authorities, a change in the political power structure means people are likely to die.
But don’t worry.
Whatever the reason for the latest violence, people who live and work in the city say they know how to stay safe. Juan Mejia, who lives in Ciudad Juárez but travels to Texas to care for his mother in El Paso, said it’s as easy as staying out of trouble.
“People just need to be calm. Things are getting ugly, but just stay away from using or selling drugs,” he said. “You get hooked or can’t pay — that’s when they get you.”
There’s more in the article, including a Chapo Guzman angle.
Check it out.