A woman wept after learning her son was killed as she stood at the crime scene in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
(Raymundo Ruiz/ Associated Press)
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Gunmen killed 25 people in drug-gang attacks in Ciudad Juarez, marking the deadliest day in more than two years for the Mexican border city. Farther east on the border, 85 inmates scaled the walls of a prison and escaped yesterday in Mexico’s biggest jail break in recent memory.
Despite the violence, President Felipe Calderon disputed a statement this week by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton saying Mexico resembled Colombia two decades ago.
“These kind of comments like the ones made by Secretary of State Clinton . . . so careless, so lacking in seriousness, are very painful for Mexico, because they damage Mexico’s image terribly,’’ Calderon told the Spanish-language network Univision.
“I think the main thing we have in common with Colombia is that both of our countries suffer from US drug consumption,’’ Calderon said. “We are both victims of the enormous American consumption of drugs, and now the sales of weapons.’’
The toll in Thursday’s attacks in Ciudad Juarez included 15 people killed when attackers stormed four homes in three hours, said Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for the attorney general of Chihuahua state, where Ciudad Juarez is.
In the worst of those attacks, gunmen burst into a house and killed two young men — then killed four witnesses.
Sandoval said it was the highest single-day murder toll in the city since March 2008. He did not give more details of how many died back then, or say what day.
Two graffiti messages appeared in Ciudad Juarez threatening Joaquin “El Chapo’’ Guzman, the fugitive head of the Sinaloa drug cartel. “You are killing our sons. You already did, and now we are going to kill your families,’’ one sign said.
In Reynosa, 85 inmates scaled the prison’s 20-foot walls using ladders, said the Tamaulipas state public safety secretary, Jose Garza Garcia.
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