A confrontation between two enemy gangs in a city jail, in which two prisoners died, immediately triggered a series of indiscriminate attacks that left nine dead and spread panic.
“The innocent civilian population was attacked as a kind of retaliation. It was not just the confrontation between two groups, but the time came when they began to shoot civilians, innocent people, “assured the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in his morning conference.
Some 600 soldiers were sent to the city to reinforce security, of which 300 arrived this Friday, according to an Army source.
The patrols, meanwhile, intensified and dozens of stores remained closed for fear of new attacks, confirmed an AFP collaborator.
The government attributed the attacks to a gang known as “Los Mexicles,” whose members attacked a group calling itself “Los Chapos” in a local prison.
Two inmates died in the events and 20 more were injured, said the Undersecretary of Security, Ricardo Mejía, at the presidential conference.
According to local media, both gangs are linked to the Sinaloa cartel, of the former capo Joaquín “Chapo” Guzmán, who is serving a life sentence in the United States.
– Journalist among victims –
After the clash in the prison, two women were killed in an attack on a grocery store, where this Friday they spontaneously went to pray and deposit candles. This and two other premises were set on fire.
Three other people died in separate events, including a minor who was shot in a supermarket, according to the prosecutor of the state of Chihuahua, Roberto Fierro.
Images from a closed circuit television show the moment in which a hit man breaks into a store and shoots the clerk at close range.
At night gunmen murdered four more people in the middle of the street, among them the announcer Alan González, from the local radio station Mega Radio, who was making a live broadcast. The other victims also worked for the station, Mejía said.
The radio team carried out promotional activities in front of a pizzeria, according to witnesses. The case is being investigated by an official mechanism for the protection of journalists.
At least 13 other communicators have been murdered in Mexico so far this year, according to balances from organizations that defend press freedom. It is investigated whether the crimes are related to his trade.
Given the climate of fear, the match between FC Juárez and Pachuca was postponed for the Mexican professional soccer tournament, which was to be played on Saturday.
– Siege of the drug trafficker –
Mejía announced the capture of six people accused of participating in the attacks.
Meanwhile, the local police reported four more captures, after the governor of the state of Chihuahua, Maru Campos, reported on the deployment of federal and state forces in this city of 1.5 million inhabitants to restore order.
The attacks in Ciudad Juárez occurred two days after a violent escalation in the states of Jalisco (west) and Guanajuato (center), attributed by the government to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), one of the most powerful in the country.
These events left an alleged criminal dead, 16 detainees, as well as 25 businesses and several vehicles burned.
Some of the attacks occurred on the outskirts of Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco and the third most populous city in Mexico.
The violence broke out after soldiers broke into a meeting between alleged CJNG bosses, according to López Obrador, to whom the opposition attributes a passive attitude towards drug traffickers.
After the escalation on Thursday, several sectors of Ciudad Juárez were deserted, some universities suspended classes on Friday and the Chihuahua business association demanded that the government act forcefully against organized crime.
Chihuahua is one of the six states (out of 32) that account for 50% of the homicides committed in Mexico, with 929 cases as of July 20, according to official figures.
