Deadly record as 21 slain in northern Mexican city

CIUDAD JUAREZ: Mexico's most violent city, Ciudad Juarez, suffered its deadliest day this year on Tuesday, with 21 homicides, local officials said Wednesday.

"It was the most violent day in 2011, surpassing February 18 when 19 people were killed," said a spokesman for the state prosecutor.

The border city of Juarez, which lies opposite the Texas city of El Paso, has for the past three years been at the center of an ongoing war between two drug cartels, Juarez and Sinaloa, for control of the lucrative market in the United States.

Last year, the city recorded more than 3,100 homicides.

Since then, the government says that it has helped reduce the murder rate by 60 percent between October 2010 and April 2011. Federal justice figures show 1,220 homicides in Juarez since the beginning of 2011.

The northern Mexico industrial city of Monterrey was also hit by drug trafficking violence, reporting 19 people killed on Tuesday.

The wave of violence in Monterrey, where 21 people were also killed Friday, is part of an ongoing fight between the Los Zetas drug gang and the Gulf cartel.

More than 50,000 soldiers have been deployed by Mexican president Felipe Calderon to fight drug gangs since he took office in December 2006.

In total upwards of 37,000 people linked to drug trafficking have been killed since then, either in battles between cartel members or with the military.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011