A human rights activist in Ciudad Juarez is recovering from what she says was attempted murder but what authorities describe as robbery gone wrong.

Norma Andrade co-founded the group May Our Daughters Return Home after her own daughter was killed in a long-running string of brutal rape-murders in Ciudad Juárez. Andrade was shot five times the afternoon of Friday, December 2nd as she left her home to go to work.

Investigators call it a botched carjacking. Andrade, who survived the shooting and was hospitalized, says the attacker said nothing before walking up to her and discharging his firearm. She was discharged from the hospital to a location with 24-hour security on Tuesday, December 6th.

Another of Andrade’s daughters, active in May Our Daughters Return Home, left Ciudad Juarez earlier this year after arsonists set fire to her house. The other co-founder of the organization, Marisela Ortiz, fled the troubled border city after receiving direct threats via a “narco-banner” hung outside of the school where she worked.

May Our Daughters Return Home assists femicide victims’ families and has also recently been investigating sex trafficking cases.

Marcela Yarce and Rocío González (credit: Contralinea)

Certain elements of the most recent crime against journalists stand out from other murders in the hemisphere’s deadliest country for press workers. First, it was a double homicide involving two women; Marcela Yarce and Rocío González. Second, it occurred in Mexico City – which has been spared much of the physical violence suffered by press workers in other parts of the country. Third, the two journalists were close friends. The two had gone to a cafe together on Wednesday night.

Marcela Yarce co-founded the critical investigative news magazine “Contralinea” which has been the target of lawsuits, harrassment, and office break-ins. She went from actively reporting to becoming a key figure in the magazine’s administrative functions. Noteably, she secured advertising revenue for the publication which receives no government-sponsored advertising. Official ads are the financial life blood of many commercial news outlets in Mexico.

Rocío González spent 15 years as a reporter at the Televisa network. She worked as as freelance journalist and owned a currency exchange booth in Mexico City’s international airport. Mexico City authorities have indicated they are investigating robbery as a possible motive, citing a large cash withdrawal from the business coffers before the women dissappeared.

Another publicly-disclosed line of investigation is that of femicide; a murder that specifically targets women and usually involves both physical torture and sexual assault. Femicide victims are usually in their teens or early 20s. Both of the murdered women were 48 years old.

Press freedom organizations have called on Mexico City investigators not to rule out the possibility that the murders were related to the journalism work of the women.

The bodies of Marcela Yarce and Rocío González were found dumped in a park Thursday in Mexico City’s Iztapalapa district. They were stripped naked, hands and feet bound, mouths gagged, with a cord around their necks. Asfixiation is noted as the cause of death in both cases although their bodies bore gunshot wounds.

Their deaths came one week after the kidnapping and murder of veteran reporter Humberto Millán Salazar in the state capital of Sinaloa. Press freedom organizations say eight press workers have been killed in Mexico so far this year – half of them in the state of Veracruz.

Plaque for Marisela Escobedo (photo: Juan Carlos Solis)

Yet again, women fighting endemic impunity in the state of Chihuahua have come under threat.

Just yesterday, Melissa del Bosque of the Texas Observer wrote about the campaign of threats, intimidations, and assassinations aimed at the women of Chihuahua “who speak out against the deaths and disappearances in their communities”. Read her article to put the following in context.

This morning, a “narco-banner” appeared outside of a middle school in Ciudad Júarez. The 6-foot long banner contained a message aimed at Marisela Ortiz, co-founder of “May Our Daughters Return Home“, an organization which seeks justice for young women who have been murdered in Juárez in a string of killings known as femicides.

According to a report in the local “Diario de Juárez” newspaper, the banner stated: “If you want to keep supporting the fucking asshole lawyer Malu, little shit teacher Marisela Ortiz we’re going to fuck up your family starting with your son “el chapolin” Rowe who is already on our list. Sincerly, J.L.___________”.

Marisela Ortiz teaches at the middle school where the banner was hung and was alerted about its content via a phone call from the principal. “Malu” is the nickname of Ortiz’s organizational colleague, Maria Luisa García Andrade, who left Ciudad Juárez two days after part of her house was set on fire. García Andrade was supporting a protest encampment calling for the return of 3 abducted members of the Reyes Salazar family, which has lost 6 people in less than 3 years.

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The bodies of María Magdalena Reyes Salazar, her brother Elías Reyes Salazar, and his wife Luisa Ornelas Soto were dumped in an rural area near Ciudad Juárez. The family members were abducted by an armed commando on February 7th and their relatives have been pressuring authorities ever since to find the 3 kidnapping victims alive.

Members of the Reyes Salazar family began a hunger strike outside of the special investigators office in Ciudad Juárez on February 8th, then moved their protest camp to the Senate building in Mexico City earlier this week. The home of Sara Salazar, the mother and mother-in-law of those abducted, was burned down on February 15th.

The most famous member of this family was Josefina Reyes, a woman who carried out an extended battle against a planned nuclear waste dump who was also active in denouncing the impunity around a long string on unsolved rape-murders of young women in nearby Ciudad Juárez.

To total of 6 members of the Reyes Salazar family have been killed since late 2008.

It can be hard to write about the violence in Ciudad Juárez without using clichés. It’s known as “the world’s most dangerous city” or “the most lethal place on earth” at the “center of a cartel turf war” in which mass murders have become so common that only the most over-the-top massacres seem to illicit a mention in the US press. This, despite the fact that you can literally see Juárez from El Paso, Texas…and that US market demand for drugs is at the heart of the bloodshed.

In a militarized Drug War that has claimed more than 35,000 Mexican lives since December of 2006, no city has paid as high a price as Ciudad Juárez. However, criticizing the government’s militarization strategy can be dangerous.

The homes of 2 vocal activists were set on fire this week. Both had become active as a result of seeking justice for murdered family members.

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