Thread: Red Cross is Latest Victim of Mexican Drug War

This has been broadcast over and over on television news reports, so I'm surprised I can't find it posted.

Red Cross is latest victim of Mexican drug war

Posted: March 5, 2010 11:36 AM PST

Last Updated: March 5, 2010 01:56 PM PST

By MARK STEVENSON
Associated Press Writer

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Red Cross clinics in some parts of Mexico are refusing to treat people wounded by gunshots after finding themselves caught in the drug war, with cartel hit men intercepting ambulances to seize patients and even killing a Red Cross worker this week.

Miguel Angel Valdez, director of operations for the Red Cross in the Gulf coast city of Tampico, said he implemented the policy after gunmen this week forced an ambulance over at gunpoint just two blocks from a Red Cross clinic and dragged off a man wounded in a gun battle.

"We have made the decision at the (local) Red Cross not to accept patients from prisons or wounded in armed clashes, because that puts the safety of our personnel at risk," he said.

In drug-plagued Sinaloa state on the Pacific coast, police started escorting ambulances and guarding Red Cross clinics after a Red Cross dispatcher was killed Sunday in crossfire by assailants who followed a wounded man to a clinic to finish him off.

Maria Genoveva Rogers is believed to be the first Red Cross worker killed since President Felipe Calderon launched his drug war in 2006.

Hundreds of emergency personnel, medical technicians and ambulance crews took to the streets in the Sinaloa capital of Culiacan, some holding a banner that read "Service Suspended ... We Demand Safety" as ambulances accompanying the march blared their sirens.

"We are just calling on everyone to respect the symbol of the Red Cross, but there has been a loss of values," said the state's Red Cross director, Arnoldo Montano. "It is like people have forgotten what the Red Cross is."

Culiacan's Red Cross clinics closed for two days following Rogers' death. And in the violent city of Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, doctors and other personnel at two government-run clinics stayed off the job Tuesday to protest gunmen barging into emergency rooms to either rescue wounded comrades or execute rivals.

Gangs have also targeted doctors for extortion.

"We are one of the sectors that has been most affected by the situation of violence," said Dr. Leticia Chavarria Villa, president of the Medical-Civic Committee, a nonprofit group founded in the wake of the wave of violence that has swept the city.

Some doctors now refuse to admit patients at private clinics after 6 p.m., or they see only people who have been referred to them by their other patients, she said.

Amid the drug violence that has killed more than 17,900 people in Mexico in a little more than three years, even the criminals seemed to respect the Red Cross, an organization known for treating everyone - regardless of gang allegiance, criminal or social status, said Valdez, the Red Cross director in Tampico.

"But suddenly, these rules are being broken," he added

http://www.ktvz.com/Global/story.asp?S=12091466

We better seal the borders real fast as violence tends to spill over to us.

And of course the main stream media is not saying a word about this.

Originally Posted by vortex

We better seal the borders real fast as violence tends to spill over to us.

Absolutely.

Originally Posted by Rebelrouser

And of course the main stream media is not saying a word about this.

Not a peep, the lousy cowards.

Rebelrouser wrote:
"And of course the main stream media is not saying a word about this. "

In fact, that is not true - I have heard this story repeated a number of times both on FOX TV and on local TV mainstream news channels here. As I wrote at the top of the article:

"This has been broadcast over and over on television news reports, so I'm surprised I can't find it posted."

Originally Posted by Texas2step

Rebelrouser wrote:
"And of course the main stream media is not saying a word about this. "

In fact, that is not true - I have heard this story repeated a number of times both on FOX TV and on local TV mainstream news channels here. As I wrote at the top of the article:

"This has been broadcast over and over on television news reports, so I'm surprised I can't find it posted."

Really?! I wonder why no one else caught it? I watch CNN and Fox and missed it. Dang! Well thank you so much Texas2step for hearing it and posting it for us. And many thanks to the media who did report it!

Judy wrote:
"Really?! I wonder why no one else caught it?"

Maybe they just hear what they want to hear - happens to the best, in addition to the worst, of us.

added: here's the reference to the story on google for those interested -
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&so ... arch&meta=

Originally Posted by Texas2step

Judy wrote:
"Really?! I wonder why no one else caught it?"

Maybe they just hear what they want to hear - happens to the best, in addition to the worst, of us.

So true. Well, I'm very glad you caught it and posted it for us.