MEXICO - With 25 people killed in violent outbreaks, Thursday was one of Chihuahua state's deadliest days of the year, the state Investigations Agency said on Friday. Seven of the victims were women and girls and two were 15-years-old, said agency spokesman Arturo Sandoval. One of the males killed was 17, he said. Additionally, Sandoval pointed out, 14 of the fatalities took place in three incidents in a one-hour period. The Reuters news agency reported that gunmen stormed into houses in Ciudad Juarez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, and shot people they accused of working for rival drug gangs. The agency said it was the deadliest day in Juarez since 2008, when the raging drug war began in earnest. Nearly 30,000 people have been killed in drug violence since the government's bloody war on organized crime began. The drug cartels are now suspected in the deaths of three mayors in less than a month. The most recent, Mayor Alexander Lopez Garcia of El Naranjo in San Luis Potosi state, was gunned down in his office Wednesday, officials said.
