Narco-land
2008 has been the bloodiest year for Mexico’s northern territories in recent memory. Close to 6000 people have been slain in drug mafia related violence, primarily in the region of Sinaloa, and the border states of Chihuahua and Baja, California.
Competing drug cartels fight over prized smuggling corridors into the United States with a brutality never before seen in Mexico, including hundreds of decapitations and the deployment of sophisticated military weaponry. The victims are primarily gangsters working for rival organizations and police. But innocents are filling the morgues as well, including a handful of journalists, and people unlucky enough to be in proximity of a mafia hit team executing a “job.” Kidnappings of low-profile targets by cartels have also grown exponentially by drug gangs in an effort to increase their war chests for the escalating battle.
Mexico’s major drug violence first started in the 1990s when fledgling Mexican organizations began to play a larger role in the transcontinental smuggling of cocaine from Colombia. By the turn on the millennium, the Mexicans had become the top players after the large Colombian cartels were dismantled. The Mexican drug war began to accelerate in 2005 when up and coming mafias began to challenge the traditional drug lords of Sinaloa state. Then, in 2006, newly-elected Mexican President Philipe Calderon began a very public reaction to cartel violence by deploying thousands of military troops into the streets of Mexico. The cartels answered this show of force by increasing their brutal attacks on Mexico’s law enforcement agents.
The battle rages on with no end in sight.
This group of pictures was made in Tijuana, Mexico between July and November of 2008 - a period of time that saw over 500 drug related murders in a city of 1.5 million.
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