A US university student died on Wednesday from a shooting attack on a car in Ciudad Juarez, making him the fifth American slain in the violent border city in six days.
Eder Diaz, 23, a student across the border at the University of Texas at El Paso, was attacked on Tuesday evening along with classmate Manuel Acosta, 25, the US Consulate in Ciudad Juarez confirmed in a statement.
Gunmen opened fire on a car in which the two were traveling, according to an investigator from the state of Chihuahua. The investigator spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case.
Acosta was killed at the scene, while Diaz died early on Wednesday at a Juarez hospital, university spokesman Steve Lazarin said.
The consulate said it had not yet confirmed whether Acosta was also a US citizen.
Diaz was the fifth US citizen to be killed in Ciudad Juarez since last Friday. All the victims were from El Paso.
Luis Carlos Araiza, 15, and Joanna Herrera, 27, were fatally shot while traveling near the Zaragoza international bridge on Saturday. Mexican officials said they had criminal records but would not elaborate.
Edgar Lopez, 35, was shot and killed on Saturday at a residence in Ciudad Juarez, while on Friday, Lorena Izaguirre, 24, was killed at a tortilla shop.
According to US State Department figures, Americans were victims in 47 homicides in Mexico in the first six months of this year, the most recent figures available. That number is on track to pass 79 homicides of US citizens last year.
The most recent attacks represent the deadliest week for Americans in Mexico since Feb. 1, when four US citizens were killed in different parts of the country. The largest previous single-city death toll for Americans was on May 9 last year, when four US citizens were slain in Tijuana.
Few of the victims seem to have been targeted as US citizens.
In some killings, US citizens apparently have been in the company of Mexican friends, relatives or acquaintances who were the targets.
Other Americans have been killed by stray bullets.
In one of the most brazen attacks, US consular employee Lesley Enriquez and her husband, Arthur Redelfs, were shot to death in their white SUV on a Ciudad Juarez street last March after leaving a children’s birthday party.
A man whose wife also worked at the consulate was fatally shot about the same time in a different part of the city because he left the same event in a car that looked similar to Enriquez’s.
Suspects later told investigators the Azteca gang ordered the killings, claiming Enriquez helped rival gang members get visas.
Investigators deny that Enriquez was involved with drug gangs.
In another grisly turn in the drug war, police have recovered 18 bodies from a mass grave announced in a YouTube posting — a video saying the victims were from a tourist group kidnapped in Acapulco a month ago.
Authorities said they would resume their search yesterday for remains at the burial site in Tres Palos, a town south of the resort city.
Police did not yet know if the bodies found were from the 20 men abducted at gunpoint on Sept. 30 while visiting Acapulco from neighboring Michoacan state, Fernando Monreal, investigative police chief for Guerrero state, said on Wednesday night.
Officers began digging at the site early on Wednesday after receiving an anonymous phone call alerting them to two bodies dumped on an empty lot.
Hours earlier, a video appeared on Youtube in which two men — their hands apparently tied behind their backs and answering questions from an unseen interrogator — say they killed “the Michoacanos” and buried them in the area.
The two bodies reported in the tip were found wearing the same clothes as the pair seen in the video and were lying on top of the mass the grave.
A sign left between the two men read: “The people they killed are buried here.”
It was signed by Acapulco’s Independent Cartel.
Monreal said authorities had not confirmed the identities of the bodies dumped on top of the grave.
In the video, the two men say they killed the “Michoacanos” in an act of revenge against La Familia, a powerful drug cartel based in Michoacan state.
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