This past Sunday, a coordinated armed attack against a state-operated prison located in the Mexican border city of Juarez resulted in the deaths of 14 people and the injury of another 13.
As reported by the state prosecutor’s office of Chihuahua, attackers fell upon the Cereso state prison in a number of armed vehicles at roughly 7 a.m. and started to open fire on the prison’s guards, read a report from Fox News. The prosecutor’s office claimed that a total of 10 guards were killed alongside three inmates prior to the Mexican soldiers and police forces retaking control of the area around the prison near noon. During the incident, roughly 24 prisoners were able to escape their confinement.
A total of five men were taken into custody while three of the suspected attackers were gunned down in the wake of a police chase and subsequent shootout, as reported by Juarez Mayor Cruz Perez Cuellar. A number of the inmateswere reportedly able to steal cars throughout the city after finding their surprise freedom.
The Cereso state prison was thought to be one of the most dangerous of its kind throughout all of Latin America. Many government officials have stated that it is run by an organized crime group that are the ones responsible for ordering a number of attacks throughout Juarez while using the prison as a base. The assault which took place this past Sunday was quickly blamed on rival gangs, a very common occurrence in the Mexican city that is being forced to deal with extreme levels of violence as the big drug cartels battle out their war for control of the prime real estate border town located just to the south of El Paso, Texas.
Officials from the Mexican government have announced that their military and police officials have all been placed on “maximum alert” due to the nature of the ongoing investigation into just what took place regarding the massive assault and subsequent extreme prison break.
This attack against the Juarez prison that took place on New Year’s Day has notably followed a massive prison riot that took place last year in Ciudad Juarez. A total of eleven individuals ended up dead back in August in the wake of a pair of drug cartels kicking off a riot in a prison that devolved into a number of shootings and extreme public unrest throughout the city, eventually resulting in the chaos spreading to the surrounding communities. The Sinaloa and Los Mexicles cartels were the two criminal groups involved. Both groups show ties to the infamous drug lord “El Chapo” Guzman.