By IANS/EFE,
Ciudad Juarez (Mexico) : Over 2,000 people were killed in gang wars in 2010 in Mexico’s “murder capital” of Ciudad Juarez on the border with the US, reveal official figures.
A total of 2,027 murders have been committed in 2010 in Ciudad Juarez, located across the border from El Paso, Texas.
August was the most violent month in the border city, with 327 homicides registered by state prosecutors.
A total of 291 murders, or an average of over nine per day, were reported in July. June ranks as the second most violent month of the year, with 313 killings. There were 262 killings in May, 205 in April, 240 in March, 163 in February and 227 in January.
The city gained notoriety in the 1990s when young women began to disappear in the area.
More than 500 women have been killed since 1993. In most of the slayings, the victims were young women from poor families who came to the city to work in assembly plants.
Drug cartels, backed by hitmen from street gangs, have been fighting for control of the border city.
Ciudad Juarez, with 191 homicides per 100,000 residents, was the most violent city in the world in 2009. The death toll for all of 2009 was 7,724.