By Diana Washington Valdez
El Paso Times
EL PASO — A victim of the Juarez violence crossed the border on Sunday to seek medical treatment for a gunshot wound.
Police spokesman Darrel Petry said an 18-year-old man with a gunshot wound to the abdomen, came across the Zaragoza international bridge.
He was transported to University Medical Center for emergency treatment. No other details were available.
In Juarez, a boy, his father and two teenagers were among the latest fatalities in the relentless violence, officials said.
In two separate attacks Saturday night, armed assailants fatally shot a man and his 8-year-old son outside their home on General Angel Trias, and a 14-year-old and 18-year-old on Gustavo Castillo street.
Witnesses said the father, who tried to shield his son from the shooting, was found laying on top of the boy’s body.
Mexican national media reported that June 11 was the nation’s bloodiest day since the drug wars began. According to El Universal newspaper, 85 people were reported murdered throughout the country that day.
Chihuahua authorities are still investigating the June 10 massacre of 19 people at the Fe y Vida drug rehabilitation center in Chihuahua City, the worst single mass killing to date in that state.
The men at the Fe y Vida center were roused out of bed shortly before 11 p.m. last Thursday and placed facedown along a hallway, the center’s director, Cristian Rey Ramirez, told The Associated Press.
“There was no warning,” Rey said.
Witnesses told Chihuahua police that enforcers for the Carrillo Fuentes drug cartel attacked the rehab center because they had orders to kill several Mexicles gang members who were hiding out there.
The Mexicles are rivals of the Aztecas gang.
Police have said two Mexican drug cartels are exploiting the rehab centers to recruit hit men and drug smugglers, often threatening to kill those who don’t cooperate. Others are killed for failing to pay for drugs or betraying a dealer.
Mexico’s biggest clandestine mass grave was discovered last month at an abandoned mine in the state of Guerrero. Authorities said they suspect the 55 bodies they unearthed at the mine were victims of drug violence.
About 23,000 people have been killed in Mexico since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderon declared war on the drug cartels.
Copyright 2010 El Paso Times, a MediaNews Group Newspaper