Countless Juarez residents flee 'dying city'

[LuvNewcastle]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101229/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_drug_war_leaving_juarez


CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – The mother of four raised a finger, pointing out abandoned and stripped concrete homes and counting how many families have fled the Western Hemisphere's deadliest city on her street alone.
"One, two, three, four, here, and two more back there on the next block," said Laura Longoria.
The 36-year-old ran a convenience store in her working-class neighborhood in south Juarez until the owners closed shop, fed up with the tribute they were forced to pay to drug gangsters to stay in business.
Her family vowed to stick it out. But then came the kidnapping of a teen from a stationery shop across the street. After that, Longoria's husband, Enrique Mondragon, requested a transfer from the bus company where he works.
"They asked, `where to,'" he recalled. "I said, `Anywhere.'"