http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_16463808

Cartels rule town's residents by fear
By Adriana Gómez Licón \ El Paso Times
Posted: 10/29/2010 12:00:00 AM MDT

JUAREZ Y REFORMA -- Armed gangs have terrorized and scared away residents of the Valley of Juárez. One of the small towns along the dangerous highway resembled a ghost town Thursday after gunmen killed four people in buses carrying maquiladora workers.

In this land of cotton and alfalfa fields, residents live terrified by the drug cartels. People living in Juárez y Reforma have gotten used to seeing killings, kidnappings, houses and shops on fire, and the constant presence of the Mexican army.

Drug cartel violence sparked an exodus out of the valley this year.

"Many people have left this town," said a lifelong resident of Juárez y Reforma who did not want to be named for security reasons. "The only ones left here are the natives."

The man and his family live in one of the few houses on the two-way highway that connects Juárez to El Porvenir, a town opposite Fort Hancock, Texas.

The bus shooting was tragic, they said, but deadly attacks are not rare in this town populated by only a few hundred.

A day earlier, gunmen gunned down Edgar Daniel Delgado Gómez, 32.

Few commercial buildings are left in Juárez y Reforma. A hardware store and an auto repair shop stand on each side of the highway.

Many homes were destroyed by arsonists. Almost nobody drives the dirt roads, even during the day, and no children play outside in the parks.

Juárez y Reforma is part of the municipality of Guadalupe Bravos, which is neighbor to El Paso and Hudspeth counties on the U.S. side.

Guadalupe Bravos has no police chief or department. The only one responding to police calls is an armed 28-year-old woman. Her name is Erika Gándara.

Gándara is not the only young woman policing the Valley of Death, as people have nicknamed it. In the municipality adjacent to Guadalupe Bravos, 20-year-old Marisol Valles became the police chief of Praxedis G. Guerrero this month.