Mexico drug war: the new killing fields

The UK Guardian Rory Carroll reports from the centre of drug cartel violence that claimed 28,000 lives - Picture on left - The bloody footprints following one of thousands of murders.

The events which have no name scythe through the valley like invisible reapers. They slice east to west, west to east, a homicidal pendulum. No one sees anything. The pair of human heads left in a coolbox on the corner of the plaza? A mystery. The 18 houses burnt in a single night? An enigma. The doctor and his family who disappeared? A rumour. This much residents do tell you: Juárez valley stretches along the Rio Bravo and used to grow cotton. It roasts by day, shivers by night. Lob a stone over the river and it lands in Texas. Beyond that, conversation tends to dry up. Of the slaughter, of the reason this has become one of the deadliest places on the planet, residents have little to say. At most they refer to "the situation", "the things happening" or, simply, "it". Read more

Mexico drug war: the new killing fields