Thread: War in Nuevo Laredo Escalates

War in Nuevo Laredo Escalates
February 10, 2006 12:38 PM EST


By Sher Zieve – Just across the border from the United States, a war is ensuing. Located close to the Texas border Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, in the State of Tamaulipas, is said to have been virtually abandoned to drug lords and drug cartels by the Mexican government.

Gunfire and grenade explosions are daily occurrences in the Mexican town and its police are said to be powerless to stop the violence. The editor of the Nuevo Laredo newspaper El Mañana Daily said on Friday that it will print no more stories on the drug war. On Wednesday, the paper’s drug crime reporter Jaime Orozco Tey was shot five times by gunmen who forced their way into the newspaper’s offices. On Friday the editor reiterated that the newspaper does not support the drug cartels but, that he and other workers at the paper have families to protect.

The group Reporters Without Borders said: “The care that El Mañana took in its coverage of a region in the grip of violence and drug cartels was not enough to prevent it from being the target of this new attempt to silence the press. Fourteen journalists have been killed in Mexico since the start of President Vicente Fox’s term, half of them in Tamaulipas.â€

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