Widow of murdered man killed at his funeral service

A deadly gun and arson attack a funeral service in Ciudad Juárez had led to the death of the deceased man's wife and injured eight children - including a baby.

According to local media, the incident at a chapel in Mexico's notorious 'Murder City' began when the assailants burst into the San Martin Funeral Home firing weapons, killing the widow with a gunshot to the head and then covered her and the injured in petrol.

The gang then set the woman alight along with other victims of the shooting causing first and second degree burns to five minors in what is being described as a targeted strike.

Visible is the room of a mortuary in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, where the funeral of a 25-year-old man took place. Gunmen entered the mortuary, shot the assistants, sprayed the site with gasoline and then set fire to the widow

The woman who has been identified as Gabriela Manriquez died after being shot in the head and suffered burns to her body.

Police in Ciudad Juárez have begun an investigation to examine whether the murder was directly linked to the city's warring drug cartels.

 

'The victims were holding a wake when several men erupted into the San Martin funeral home and launched Molotov explosives,' said Arturo Sandoval, spokesman for the Chihuahua Attorney General's office in Juárez to the El Paso Times
Authorities said that the suspects fled the scene after the attack and that the funeral home was all but destroyed during the chaotic scene at Centeno and Sorgo streets in the El Granjero neighbourhood.

A man walks near a puddle of blood inside the chapel of a funeral parlor in the drug-ravaged Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez

Described as the 'Murder Capital of the World', Ciudad Juarez experienced 1,933 murders in 2011.
At the heart of violence has been the battle between the rival Sinaloa and the Juarez cartel's for control of drug smuggling routes into the United States.

The city of one million people has moved from a murder rate of 44 people in 1990 to over 3,117 in 2010.

A recent CNN report listed Ciudad Juárez alongside Karachi, Beirut and Cape Town as the most dangerous cities in the world currently not experiencing an armed national conflict.

A woman prays in front of crosses in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico, known as 'The Murder Capital of the World'

However, last month, the city reported the lowest number of murders in more than three years.

Chihuahua's state prosecutor's office reported 73 killings for May, the lowest number since March 2009, when 73 people were also reported murdered.
Jorge González Nicolás, the head of the state prosecutor's office said that he was happy with the lower number, but said there was still more work to be done.

'These are not figures we should applaud or go boast anywhere. These are still very high homicide figures,' said González to the El Paso Times.

View of arms at the laboratory of the forensic medical service of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico on May 1, 2012. More than 40,000 people have been killed in rising drug-related violence in Mexico since December 2006

'But for those of us who know how things were and we compare to what was going on in 2009 and 2010, we know we're on the right track. Our job is to reduce it much more.'

Since the violence between the rival drug cartels exploded into life in 2008, authorities estimate more than 10,500 people have been killed.


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