Juarez awaits feds' response to violence

By Louie Gilot / El Paso Times
Article Launched: 02/02/2008 12:43:51 AM MST

JUAREZ - With the Mexican federal response to the escalating violence in Juárez failing to materialize this week, some residents on both sides of the border are worried.

Ramon Barron, a Juárez shop owner with two young children, said he was "panicked."

"In the streets," he said, "we walk in the light because we don't know what's in the shadows. We need a lot more federal help. It is a big city."

In El Paso, 70-year-old Salvador Gurani said that he needed to go to Juárez once in a while to visit a sick brother but that he hasn't made the trip lately.

"I'm sort of afraid to go," he said. "When I go, it's really early in the morning, because in the evening, it would be suicide."

Juárez has seen at least 44 homicides since the beginning of the year, or an average of more than one a day. Friday, the tied-up bodies of two men were found in the streets, and a teenager was shot and his 10-year-old sister was wounded.