Magnum Photos -
MEXICO. Ciudad Juarez. December 7, 2009.
AZTECAS members in the high security area N¡5 of the Juarez state prison.
These detainees are suspected of involvements in a fight between two gangs "Aztecas vs AA" inside the state prison of Ciudad Juarez that left 22 prisoners dead and seven others injured in march 2009.
Since, they are confined to their cells to avoid any contact with other prisoners

In Ciudad Juarez, a Mexican city along the US border of 1,5 million souls, you'll have more chances of being killed then in Baghdad. For the sole year 2009, there were 2,657 "executions" counted . There are around 8,000 soldiers stationed in the city to reinforce police forces but fear has spread amongst the population where the crime rate is of 163 murders for 1,000 inhabitants. Rivalry between gangs controlling the drug market, violence within jobless families relying on relatives to send them dollars from the other side of the frontier, as well as the overwhelming presence of the cartels infiltrating state authorities and ransoming anyone from street vendors to corrupted officials has sent Ciudad Juarez in a seemingly endless spirale of violence.



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