MEXICO. Ciudad Juarez. November 29, 2009.
A 15 girl dance during at a party in Barrio Bajo.
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.