title: Mexican drug war

text: The Sinaloa Cartel began to contest the Gulf Cartel's domination of the coveted southwest Texas corridor following the arrest of Gulf Cartel leader Osiel Cárdenas in March 2003. The "Federation" was the result of a 2006 accord between several groups located in the Pacific state of Sinaloa. The cartel was led by Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, who was Mexico's most-wanted drug trafficker with an estimated net worth of U.S. $1 billion. This made him the 1140th richest man in the world and the 55th most powerful, according to his "Forbes" magazine profile. He was arrested and escaped in July 2015, and re-arrested in January 2016. In February 2010, new alliances were formed against Los Zetas and Beltrán-Leyva Cartel.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The Sinaloa Cartel fought the Juárez Cartel in a long and bloody battle for control over drug trafficking routes in and around the northern city of Ciudad Juárez. The battle eventually resulted in defeat for the Juárez Cartel, resulting in the deaths of between 5,000 and 12,000 people. During the war for the turf in Ciudad Juárez the Sinaloa Cartel used several gangs (e.g. Los Mexicles, the Artistas Asesinos and Gente Nueva) to attack the Juárez Cartel. The Juárez Cartel similarly used gangs such as La Línea and the Barrio Azteca to fight the Sinaloa Cartel.


title: Mexican drug war

text: As of May 2010, numerous reports by Mexican and U.S. media stated that Sinaloa had infiltrated the Mexican federal government and military, and colluded with it to destroy the other cartels. The Colima, Sonora and Milenio Cartels are now branches of the Sinaloa Cartel.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán was arrested on January 8, 2016, and extradited to the United States a year later. On February 4, 2019, in Brooklyn, NY, he was found guilty of ten counts of drug trafficking and sentenced to life imprisonment. Guzman unsuccessfully attempted to convince prosecutors that he has assumed charges on behalf of Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada "El Chapo" alleged that he had paid former presidents Enrique Peña Nieto and Felipe Calderón bribes, which was quickly denied by both men. In March 2019, El Chapo's successor, Ismael Zambada García, alias "El Mayo," was reported to be Mexico's "last Capo" and even more feared than his closest rival Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias "El Mencho," who serves as leader of the Jalisco Cartel New Generation.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The Beltrán-Leyva Cartel was a Mexican drug cartel and organized crime syndicate founded by the four Beltrán Leyva brothers: Marcos Arturo, Carlos, Alfredo and Héctor. In 2004 and 2005, Arturo Beltrán Leyva led powerful groups of assassins to fight for trade routes in northeastern Mexico for the Sinaloa Cartel. Through corruption or intimidation, the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel infiltrated Mexico's political, judicial and police institutions to feed classified information about anti-drug operations, and even infiltrated the Interpol office in Mexico.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Following the December 2009 death of the cartel's leader Arturo Beltrán Leyva by Mexican Marines the cartel entered into an internal power struggle between Arturo's brother, Héctor Beltrán Leyva, and Arturo's top enforcer Edgar Valdez Villarreal. Meanwhile, the cartel continued to dissolve with factions such as the South Pacific Cartel, La Mano Con Ojos, Independent Cartel of Acapulco, and La Barredora forming and the latter two cartels starting yet another intra-Beltrán Leyva Cartel conflict.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The Mexican Federal Police considers the cartel to have been disbanded, and the last cartel leader, Héctor Beltrán Leyva, was captured in October 2014.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The Juárez Cartel controls one of the primary transportation routes for billions of dollars' worth of illegal drug shipments annually entering the United States from Mexico. Since 2007, the Juárez Cartel has been locked in a vicious battle with its former partner, the Sinaloa Cartel, for control of Ciudad Juárez. La Línea is a group of Mexican drug traffickers and corrupt Juárez and Chihuahua state police officers who work as the armed wing of the Juárez Cartel. Vicente Carrillo Fuentes headed the Juárez Cartel until his arrest in 2014.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Since 2011, the Juárez Cartel continues to weaken. It is present in the three main points of entry into El Paso, Texas. The Juárez Cartel is only a shadow of the organization it was a decade ago, and its weakness and inability to effectively fight against Sinaloa's advances in Juarez contributed to the lower death toll in Juarez in 2011.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The Tijuana Cartel, also known as the Arellano Félix Organization, was once among Mexico's most powerful. It is based in Tijuana, one of the most strategically important border towns in Mexico, and continues to export drugs even after weakening by an internal war in 2009. Due to infighting, arrests and the deaths of some of its top members, the Tijuana Cartel is a fraction of what it was in the 1990s and early 2000s, when it was considered one of the most potent and violent criminal organizations in Mexico by the police. After the arrest or assassination of various members of the Arellano Félix family, the cartel is currently allegedly headed by Edwin Huerta Nuño alias “El Flako”.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The Gulf Cartel (CDG), based in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, has been one of Mexico's two dominant cartels in recent years. In the late 1990s, it hired a private mercenary army (an enforcer group now called Los Zetas), which in 2006 stepped up as a partner but, in February 2010, their partnership was dissolved, and both groups engaged in widespread violence across several border cities of Tamaulipas state, turning several border towns into "ghost towns".


title: Mexican drug war

text: The CDG was strong at the beginning of 2011, holding off several Zetas incursions into its territory. As the year progressed, internal divisions led to intra-cartel battles in Matamoros and Reynosa, Tamaulipas state. The infighting resulted in several arrests and deaths in Mexico and in the United States. The CDG has since broken apart, and it appears that one faction, known as Los Metros, has overpowered its rival Los Rojos faction and is now asserting its control over CDG operations.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The infighting has weakened the CDG, but the group seems to have maintained control of its primary plazas, or smuggling corridors, into the United States. The Mexican federal government has made notable successes in capturing the leadership of the Gulf Cartel. Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, his brothers Antonio Cárdenas Guillén, Mario Cárdenas Guillén, and Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sánchez have all been captured and incarcerated during Felipe Calderón's administration.


title: Mexican drug war

text: In 1999, Gulf Cartel's leader, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, hired a group of 37 corrupt former elite military soldiers to work for him. These former Airmobile Special Forces Group (GAFE), and Amphibian Group of Special Forces (GANFE) soldiers became known as Los Zetas and began operating as a private army for the Gulf Cartel. During the early 2000s the Zetas were instrumental in the Gulf Cartel's domination of the drug trade in much of Mexico.


title: Mexican drug war

text: After the 2007 arrest and extradition of Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, the Zetas seized the opportunity to strike out on their own. Under the leadership of Heriberto Lazcano, the Zetas, numbering about 300, gradually set up their own independent drug, arms and human-trafficking networks. In 2008, Los Zetas made a deal with ex-Sinaloa cartel commanders, the Beltrán-Leyva brothers and since then, became rivals of their former employer/partner, the Gulf Cartel.


title: Mexican drug war

text: In early 2010 the Zetas made public their split from the Gulf Cartel and began a bloody war with the Gulf Cartel over control of northeast Mexico's drug trade routes. This war has resulted in the deaths of thousands of cartel members and suspected members. Furthermore, due to alliance structures, the Gulf Cartel-Los Zetas conflict drew in other cartels, namely the Sinaloa Cartel which fought the Zetas in 2010 and 2011.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The Zetas are notorious for targeting civilians, including the mass murder of 72 migrants in the San Fernando massacre.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The Zetas involved themselves in more than drug trafficking and have also been connected to human trafficking, pipeline trafficked oil theft, extortion, and trading unlicensed CDs. Their criminal network is said to reach far from Mexico including into Central America, the U.S. and Europe.


title: Mexican drug war

text: In recent times, Los Zetas have experienced severe fragmentation and seen its influence diminish. As of December 2016, two subgroups calling themselves Los Zetas Grupo Bravo (Group Bravo) and Zetas Vieja Escuela (Old School Zetas) formed an alliance with the Gulf Cartel against a group known as El Cartel del Noreste (The Cartel of the Northeast).


title: Mexican drug war

text: La Familia Michoacana was a major Mexican drug cartel based in Michoacán between at least 2006 and 2011. It was formerly allied to the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas, but split off and became an independent organization.


title: Mexican drug war

text: In 2009–10, a counter-narcotics offensive by Mexican and U.S. government agencies produced the arrest of at least 345 suspected La Familia members in the U.S., and the incorrectly presumed death of one of the cartel's founders, Nazario Moreno González, on December 9, 2010. The cartel then divided into the Knights Templar Cartel and a José de Jesús Méndez Vargas-led faction, which kept the name La Familia. Following the cartel's fragmentation in late 2010 and early 2011, the La Familia Cartel under Méndez Vargas fought the Knights Templar Cartel but on June 21, 2011, Méndez Vargas was arrested by Mexican authorities and in mid-2011 the attorney general in Mexico (PGR) stated that La Familia Cartel had been "exterminated", leaving only the splinter group, the Knights Templar Cartel.


title: Mexican drug war

text: In February 2010, La Familia forged an alliance with the Gulf Cartel against Los Zetas and Beltrán-Leyva Cartel.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The Knights Templar drug cartel (Spanish: "Caballeros Templarios") was created in Michoacán in March 2011 after the death of the charismatic leader of La Familia Michoacana cartel, Nazario Moreno González. The Cartel is headed by Enrique Plancarte Solís and Servando Gómez Martínez who formed the Knights Templar due to differences with José de Jesús Méndez Vargas, who had assumed leadership of La Familia Michoacana.


title: Mexican drug war

text: After the emergence of the Knights Templar, sizable battles flared up during the spring and summer months between the Knights Templar and La Familia. The organization has grown from a splinter group to a dominant force over La Familia, and at the end of 2011, following the arrest of José de Jesús "El Chango" Méndez Vargas, leader of La Familia, the cartel appeared to have taken over the bulk of La Familia's operations in Mexico and the U.S. In 2011 the Knights Templar appeared to have aligned with the Sinaloa Federation in an effort to root out the remnants of La Familia and to prevent Los Zetas from gaining a more substantial foothold in the Michoacán region of central Mexico.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Mexican drug cartels have increased their co-operation with U.S. street and prison gangs to expand their distribution networks within the U.S.


title: Mexican drug war

text: On March 31, 2014, Enrique Plancarte Solís, a high-ranking leader in the cartel, was killed by the Mexican Navy.


title: Mexican drug war

text: On September 6, 2016, A Mexican police helicopter was shot down by a gang, killing four people. The police were conducting an operation against criminal groups and drug cartels in Apatzingán, including the Knights Templar Cartel, a suspect.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (, "CJNG", "Los Mata Zetas" and "Los Torcidos") is a Mexican criminal group based in Jalisco and headed by Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes ("El Mencho"), one of Mexico's most-wanted drug lords. Jalisco New Generation Cartel started as one of the splits of Milenio Cartel, beside La Resistencia. La Resistencia accused CJNG of giving up Oscar Valencia (El Lobo) to the authorities and called them Los Torcidos (The Twisted Ones). Jalisco Cartel defeated La Resistencia and took control of Millenio Cartel's smuggling networks. Jalisco New Generation Cartel expanded its operation network from coast to coast in only six months, making it one of the criminal groups with the greatest operating capacity in Mexico as of 2012. Through online videos, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel has tried to seek society's approval and tacit consent from the Mexican government to confront Los Zetas by posing as a "righteous" and "nationalistic" group. Such claims have stoked fears that Mexico, just like Colombia a generation before, may be witnessing the rise of paramilitary drug gangs. By 2018 the CJNG was hyped as the most powerful cartel in Mexico. though Insight Crime has said the Sinaloa Cartel is still the most powerful cartel and called the CJNG its closest rival. In 2019, the group was greatly weakened by infighting, arrests of senior operatives, and a war with the Sinaloa Cartel and its allies,


title: Mexican drug war

text: CJNG co-founder Érick Valencia Salazar (alias "El 85") and former high-ranking CJNG leader Enrique Sánchez Martínez (alias "El Cholo") had also departed from the CJNG and formed a rival cartel known as the Nueva Plaza Cartel. Since 2017, the cartel has been engaged in a war with the CJNG. The Nueva Plaza Cartel has also become aligned with the Sinaloa Cartel to fight the CJNG.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Cartels have been engaged in religious propaganda and psychological operations to influence their rivals and those within their area of influence. They use banners or "narcomantas" to threaten their rivals. Some cartels hand out pamphlets and leaflets to conduct public relation campaigns. Many cartels have controlled the information environment by threatening journalists, bloggers, and others who speak out against them. They have elaborate recruitment strategies targeting young adults to join their cartel groups. They have successfully branded the word "narco", and the word has become part of Mexican culture. There is music, television shows, literature, beverages, food, and architecture that all have been branded "narco".


title: Mexican drug war

text: Paramilitary groups work alongside cartels to provide protection. This protection began with a focus on maintaining the drug trade, then moved to theft from other valuable industries such as oil and mining. It has been suggested that the rise in paramilitary groups coincides with a loss of security within the government. These paramilitary groups came about in a number of ways. First, waves of elite armed forces and government security experts have left the government to join the side of the cartels, responding to large bribes and an opportunity for wealth they may not have received in government positions. One such paramilitary group, Los Zetas, employed military personnel to create one of the largest groups in Mexico. Some of the elite armed forces members who join paramilitaries are trained in the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC, formerly known as the School of the Americas). One theory is that the paramilitaries have sprung out of deregulation of the Mexican army, which has been slowly replaced by private security firms. Paramilitaries, including the Zetas, have now entered uncharted territories. Branching out of just protecting drug cartels, paramilitary groups have entered many other financially profitable industries, such as oil, gas, kidnapping, and counterfeiting electronics. There has been a complete and total loss of control by the government, and the only response has been to increase army presence, notably an army whose officials are often on the drug cartels payroll. The United States has stepped in to offer support in the "War on Drugs" through funding, training and military support, and transforming the Mexican judicial system to parallel the American system.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Women in the Mexican drug war have been participants and civilians. They have served for and or been harmed by all belligerents. There have been female combatants in the military, police, cartels, and gangs. Women officials, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, paralegals, reporters, business owners, social media influencers, teachers, and non-governmental organizations directors and workers have also been involved in different capacities. Women citizens and foreigners, including migrants, have been raped, tortured, and murdered in the conflict.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Cartels and gangs fighting in the conflict carry out sex trafficking in Mexico as an alternative source of profits. Some members of the criminal organizations also abduct women and girls to use as their personal sex slaves and carry out sexual assault of migrants from Latin America to the United States.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Mexicans have a constitutional right to own firearms, but legal purchase from the single Mexican gun shop in Mexico City is extremely difficult. Firearms that make their way to Mexico come primarily from the American civilian market. Most grenades and rocket-launchers are smuggled through Guatemalan borders, as leftovers from past conflicts in Nicaragua. Some grenades are also smuggled from the U.S. to Mexico or stolen from the Mexican military.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The most common weapons used by the cartels are the AR-15, M16, M4, AK-47, AKM and Type 56 assault rifles. Handguns are very diverse, but the FN Five-seven (dubbed "Matapolicías" or "Cop-killer" by criminals) is a popular choice due to its armor-piercing capability. Grenade launchers are known to have been used against Mexican security forces, while H&K G36s and M4 carbines with M203 grenade launchers have been confiscated.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Some researchers have asserted that most weapons and arms trafficked into Mexico come from gun dealers in the United States. There is strong evidence for this conclusion, indicating that many of the traceable weapons come from the failed American government Operation "Fast and Furious", and there is a geographic coincidence between the supposed American origin of the firearms and the places where these weapons are seized, mainly in the northern Mexican states. Most grenades and rocket-launchers are smuggled through Guatemalan borders from Central America. Some grenades are also smuggled from the US to Mexico or stolen from the Mexican military. United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials have stated that the statistic is misleading: out of approximately 30,000 weapons seized in drug cases in Mexico in 2004–2008, 7,200 appeared to be of U.S. origin, approximately 4,000 were found in ATF manufacturer and importer records, and 87 percent of those—3,480—originated in the United States.


title: Mexican drug war

text: In an effort to control smuggling of firearms, the U.S. government is assisting Mexico with technology, equipment and training. Project Gunrunner was one such effort between the U.S. and Mexico to collaborate in tracing Mexican guns which were manufactured in or imported legally to the U.S.


title: Mexican drug war

text: In 2008, it was falsely reported that ninety percent of arms either captured in Mexico or interdicted were from the United States. The DHS and others have dismissed these claims, pointing that the Mexican sample submitted for ATF tracing is the fraction of weapons seized that appear to have been made in the U.S. or imported into the U.S.


title: Mexican drug war

text: In 2015, official reports of the U.S. government and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) revealed that over the last years, Mexican cartels improved their firearm power, and that 71% of their weapons come from the U.S. Many of those guns were manufactured in Romania and Bulgaria, and then imported into the U.S. The Mexican cartels acquire those firearms mainly in the southern states of Texas, Arizona and California. After the United States, the top five countries of origin of firearms seized from Mexico were Spain, China, Italy, Germany and Romania. These five countries represent 17% of firearms smuggled into Mexico.


title: Mexican drug war

text: ATF Project Gunrunner has stated that the official objective is to stop the sale and export of guns from the United States into Mexico in order to deny Mexican drug cartels the firearms considered "tools of the trade". In February 2011, it brought about a scandal when the project was accused of accomplishing the opposite by ATF permitting and facilitating "straw purchase" firearm sales to traffickers, and allowing the guns to "walk" and be transported to Mexico. Allegedly, the ATF allowed to complete the transactions to expose the supply chain and gather intelligence. It has been established that this operation violated long-established ATF policies and practices and that it is not a recognized investigative technique. Several of the guns sold under the Project Gunrunner were recovered from crime scenes in Arizona, and at crime scenes throughout Mexico, resulting in considerable controversy.


title: Mexican drug war

text: One notable incident was the "Black Swan operation" where Joaquín Guzmán Loera was finally captured. The ATF confirmed that one of the weapons the Mexican Navy seized from Guzmán's gunmen was one of the many weapons that were "lost" during the Project Gunrunner.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Many weapons from Project Gunrunner were found in a secret compartment from the "safe house" of José Antonio Marrufo "El Jaguar", one of Guzmán's most sanguinary lieutenants. He is accused of many killings in Ciudad Juárez, including the notorious massacre of 18 patients of the rehabilitation center "El Aliviane". It is believed that Marrufo armed his gunmen with weapons purchased in the United States.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Although violence between drug cartels had been occurring long before the war began, the government held a generally passive stance regarding cartel violence in the 1990s and early 2000s. That changed on December 11, 2006, when newly elected President Felipe Calderón sent 6,500 Federal troops to the state of Michoacán to end drug violence there. This action is regarded as the first major operation against organized crime, and became the starting point of the war between the government and the drug cartels. Calderón escalated his anti-drug campaign, in which there are now about 45,000 troops involved in addition to state and federal police forces. In 2010, Calderón said that the cartels seek "to replace the government" and "are trying to impose a monopoly by force of arms, and are even trying to impose their own laws".


title: Mexican drug war

text: As of 2011, Mexico's military captured 11,544 people who were believed to have been involved with the cartels and organized crime. In the year prior, 28,000 individuals were arrested on drug-related charges. The decrease in eradication and drug seizures, as shown in statistics calculated by federal authorities, poorly reflects Calderón's security agenda. Since the war began, over forty thousand people have been killed as a result of cartel violence. During Calderón's presidential term, the murder rate of Mexico has increased dramatically.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Although Calderón set out to end the violent warfare between rival cartel leaders, critics argue that he inadvertently made the problem worse. The methods that Calderón adopted involved confronting the cartels directly. These aggressive methods have resulted in public killings and torture from both the cartels and the country's own government forces, which aids in perpetuating the fear and apprehension that the citizens of Mexico have regarding the war on drugs and its negative stigma. As cartel leaders are removed from their positions, by arrest or death, power struggles for leadership in the cartels have become more intense, resulting in enhanced violence within the cartels themselves.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Calderón's forces concentrate on taking down cartel members that have a high ranking in the cartel in an attempt to take down the whole organization. The resulting struggle to fill the recently vacated position is one that threatens the existence of many lives in the cartel. Typically, many junior-level cartel members then fight amongst one another, creating more and more chaos. The drug cartels are more aggressive and forceful now than they were in the past and at this point, the cartels hold much of the power in Mexico. Calderón relies heavily on the military to defend and fight against cartel activity. Calderón's military forces have yet to yield significant results in dealing with the violent cartels due in part to the fact that many police working for the Mexican government are suspected of corruption. There is suspicion that cartels have corrupted and infiltrated the military at a high level, influencing many generals and officers. Mexico's National Human Rights Commission has received nearly 5,800 complaints regarding military abuse since the beginning of the drug war in 2006. Additionally, the National Human Rights Commission has completed nearly 90 in-depth reports since 2007, addressing the many human rights violations of civilians that have occurred while the military officers were actively participating in law enforcement activities.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Violence in May 2012 in which nearly 50 bodies were found on a local highway between the Mexico–United States border and Monterrey has led to the arrests of 4 high-ranking Mexican military officials. These officials were suspected of being on the cartel payrolls and alerting them before military action against them. Such actions demonstrate that Calderón's significant military offensive will continue to reveal mixed results until the military itself is rid of the corrupting influences of the cartels whom they supposedly aim to persecute.


title: Mexican drug war

text: In April 2008, General Sergio Aponte, the man in charge of the anti-drug campaign in the state of Baja California, made a number of allegations of corruption against the police forces in the region. Among his allegations, Aponte stated that he believed Baja California's anti-kidnapping squad was actually a kidnapping team working in conjunction with organized crime, and that bribed police units were used as bodyguards for drug traffickers.


title: Mexican drug war

text: These accusations sent shock waves through state government. Many of the more than 50 accused officials quit or fled. The progress against drug cartels in Mexico has been hindered by bribery, intimidation, and corruption; four months later the General was relieved of his command.


title: Mexican drug war

text: On April 26, 2008, a major battle took place between members of the Tijuana and Sinaloa cartels in the city of Tijuana, Baja California, that left 17 people dead.


title: Mexican drug war

text: In March 2009, President Calderón called in an additional 5,000 Mexican Army troops to Ciudad Juárez. The DHS also said that it was considering using state National Guard troops to help the U.S. Border Patrol counter the threat of drug violence in Mexico from spilling over the border into the U.S. The governors of Arizona and Texas have encouraged the federal government to use additional National Guard troops from their states to help those already there supporting state law enforcement efforts against drug trafficking.


title: Mexican drug war

text: According to the National Drug Intelligence Center, Mexican cartels are the predominant smugglers and wholesale distributors of South American cocaine and Mexico-produced cannabis, methamphetamine and heroin. Mexico's cartels have existed for some time, but have become increasingly powerful in recent years with the demise of the Medellín and Cali cartels in Colombia. The Mexican cartels are expanding their control over the distribution of these drugs in areas controlled by Colombian and Dominican criminal groups, and it is now believed they control most of the illegal drugs coming into the U.S.


title: Mexican drug war

text: No longer mere intermediaries for Colombian producers, Mexican cartels are now powerful organized-crime syndicates that dominate the drug trade in the Americas.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Mexican cartels control large swaths of Mexican territory and dozens of municipalities, and they exercise increasing influence in Mexican electoral politics. Cartels have waged violent turf battles over control of key smuggling corridors from Matamoros to San Diego. Mexican cartels employ hitmen and groups of enforcers, known as "sicarios". The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reports that the Mexican drug cartels operating today along the border are far more sophisticated and dangerous than any other organized criminal group in U.S. law enforcement history. The cartels use grenade launchers, automatic weapons, body armor, Kevlar helmets, and sometimes unmanned aerial vehicles. Some groups have also been known to use improvised explosive devices (IEDs).


title: Mexican drug war

text: Casualty numbers have escalated significantly over time. According to a Stratfor report, the number of drug-related deaths in 2006 and 2007 (2,119 and 2,275) more than doubled to 5,207 in 2008. The number further increased substantially over the next two years, from 6,598 in 2009 to over 11,000 in 2010. According to data of the Mexican government, the death numbers are even higher: 9,616 in 2009, 15,273 in 2010, coming to a total of 47,515 killings since their military operations against drug cartels began in 2006, as stated in the government's report of January 2012.


title: Mexican drug war

text: On October 7, 2012, the Mexican Navy responded to a civilian complaint reporting the presence of armed gunmen in Sabinas, Coahuila. Upon the navy's arrival, the gunmen threw grenades at the patrol from a moving vehicle, triggering a shootout that left Lazcano and another gunman dead and one marine slightly wounded. The vehicle was found to contain a grenade launcher, 12 grenades, possibly a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and two rifles, according to the navy. The Navy confirmed his death through fingerprint verification and photographs of his corpse before handing the body to the local authorities. Lazcano is the most powerful cartel leader to be killed since the start of Mexico's drug war in 2006, according to Reuters.


title: Mexican drug war

text: This death came just hours after the navy arrested a high-ranking Zeta member in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Salvador Alfonso Martínez Escobedo.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The apparent death of Lazcano may benefit three parties: the Mexican Navy, who scored a significant blow to organized crime with the death of Lazcano; Miguel Treviño Morales, who rose as the "uncontested" leader of Los Zetas; and Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel and the main rival of Los Zetas. "El Chapo" is perhaps the biggest winner of the three, since his primary goal is to take over the smuggling routes in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, the headquarters of Treviño Morales. If the body had not been stolen, it would also be a symbolic victory for Felipe Calderón, who can say that his administration took down one of the founders and top leaders of Los Zetas and consequently boost the morale of the Mexican military.


title: Mexican drug war

text: It is often not clear what deaths are part of the Mexican drug war versus general criminal homicides, and different sources give different estimates. Casualties are often measured indirectly by estimated total deaths from organized crime in Mexico. This amounts to about 115,000 people in the years 2007–2018. From 2018 to 2020, it was estimated that there were 11,400 reports of gang violence, and over 80% of the attacks targeted civilians, resulting in 13,000 related-deaths during the period.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The Mexican attorney general's office has claimed that 9 of 10 victims of the Mexican drug war are members of organized-crime groups, although this figure has been questioned by other sources. Deaths among military and police personnel are an estimated 7% of the total. The states that suffer from the conflict most are Baja California, Guerrero, Chihuahua, Michoacán, Tamaulipas, Nuevo León and Sinaloa.


title: Mexican drug war

text: By January 2007, these various operations had extended to the states of Guerrero as well as the so-called "Golden Triangle States" of Chihuahua, Durango, and Sinaloa. In the following February the states of Nuevo León and Tamaulipas were included as well.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Seizures and arrests have jumped since Calderón took office in December 2006, and Mexico has extradited more than 100 people wanted in the U.S.


title: Mexican drug war

text: On July 10, 2008, the Mexican government announced plans to nearly double the size of its Federal Police force to reduce the role of the military in combating drug trafficking. The plan, known as the Comprehensive Strategy Against Drug Trafficking, also involves purging local police forces of corrupt officers. Elements of the plan have already been set in motion, including a massive police recruiting and training effort intended to reduce the country's dependence in the drug war on the military.


title: Mexican drug war

text: On July 16, 2008, the Mexican Navy intercepted a 10-meter long narco-submarine travelling about 200 kilometers off the southwest of Oaxaca; in a raid, Special Forces rappelled from a helicopter onto the deck of the submarine and arrested four smugglers before they could scuttle their vessel. The vessel was found to be loaded with 5.8 tons of cocaine and was towed to Huatulco, Oaxaca, by a Mexican Navy patrol boat.


title: Mexican drug war

text: One escalation in this conflict is the traffickers' use of new means to claim their territory and spread fear. Cartel members have broadcast executions on YouTube and on other video sharing platforms or shock sites. Cartels have also hung banners on streets stating demands and warnings.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The 2008 Morelia grenade attacks took place on September 15, 2008, when two hand grenades were thrown onto a crowded plaza, killing ten people and injuring more than 100. Some see these efforts as intended to sap the morale of government agents assigned to crack down on the cartels; others see them as an effort to let citizens know who is winning the war. At least one dozen Mexican "norteño" musicians have been murdered. Most of the victims performed what are known as "narcocorridos", popular folk songs that tell the stories of the Mexican drug trade—and celebrate its leaders as folk heroes.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Increasing violence has jeopardized foreign investment in Mexico. Finance Minister, Agustín Carstens, said that the deteriorating security alone is reducing gross domestic product annually by 1% in Mexico, Latin America's second-largest economy.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Teachers in the Acapulco region were "extorted, kidnapped and intimidated" by cartels, including death threats demanding money. They went on strike in 2011.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Mexican cartels advance their operations, in part, by corrupting or intimidating law enforcement officials. Mexican municipal, state, and federal government officials, along with the police forces, often work together with the cartels in an organized network of corruption. A "Pax Mafioso", is a specific example of corruption which guarantees a politician votes and a following in exchange for not impeding a particular cartel.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) reports that although the central government of Mexico has made concerted efforts to reduce corruption in recent years, it remains a serious problem. Some agents of the Federal Investigations Agency (AFI) are believed to work as enforcers for various cartels, and the Attorney General (PGR) reported in December 2005 that nearly 1,500 of AFI's 7,000 agents were under investigation for suspected criminal activity and 457 were facing charges.


title: Mexican drug war

text: In recent years, the federal government conducted purges and prosecution of police forces in Nuevo Laredo, Michoacán, Baja California and Mexico City. The anti-cartel operations begun by President Calderón in December 2006 includes ballistic checks of police weapons in places where there is concern that police are also working for the cartels. In June 2007, President Calderón purged 284 federal police commanders from all 31 states and the Federal District.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Under the 'Cleanup Operation' performed in 2008, several agents and high-ranking officials have been arrested and charged with selling information or protection to drug cartels; some high-profile arrests were: Victor Gerardo Garay Cadena, (chief of the Federal Police), Noé Ramírez Mandujano (ex-chief of the Organized Crime Division (SEIDO)), José Luis Santiago Vasconcelos (ex-chief of the Organized Crime Division (SEIDO)), and Ricardo Gutiérrez Vargas who is the ex-director of Mexico's Interpol office. In January 2009, Rodolfo de la Guardia García, ex-director of Mexico's Interpol office, was arrested. Julio César Godoy Toscano, who was just elected July 6, 2009, to the lower house of Congress, is charged with being a top-ranking member of La Familia Michoacana drug cartel and of protecting this cartel. He is now a fugitive.


title: Mexican drug war

text: In May 2010, an NPR report collected allegations from dozens of sources, including U.S. and Mexican media, Mexican police officials, politicians, academics, and others, that Sinaloa Cartel had infiltrated and corrupted the Mexican federal government and the Mexican military by bribery and other means. According to a report by the U.S. Army Intelligence section in Leavenworth, over a 6-year period, of the 250,000 soldiers in the Mexican Army, 150,000 deserted and went into the drug industry.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The 2010 NPR report also stated that the Sinaloa Cartel was colluding with the government to destroy other cartels and protect itself and its leader, 'Chapo'. Mexican officials denied any corruption in the government's treatment of drug cartels. Cartels had previously been reported as difficult to prosecute "because members of the cartels have infiltrated and corrupted the law enforcement organizations that are supposed to prosecute them, such as the Office of the Attorney General."


title: Mexican drug war

text: The drug control policies Mexico has adopted to prevent drug trafficking and to eliminate the power of the drug cartels have adversely affected the human rights situation in the country. These policies have given the responsibilities for civilian drug control to the military, which has the power to not only carry out anti-drug and public security operations but also enact policy. According to the U.S. State Department, the police and the military in Mexico were accused of committing serious human rights violations as they carried out government efforts to combat drug cartels.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Some groups are especially vulnerable to human rights abuses collateral to drug law enforcement. Specifically in northern border states that have seen elevated levels of drug-related violence, human rights violations of injection drug users (IDUs) and sex workers by law enforcement personnel include physical and sexual violence, extortion, and targeting for accessing or possession of injection equipment or practicing sex work, although these activities are legal. Such targeting is especially deleterious because members of these marginalized communities often lack the resources and social or political capital to vindicate their rights.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Immense power in the executive branch and corruption in the legislative and judiciary branches also contribute to the worsening of Mexico's human rights situation, leading to such problems as police forces violating basic human rights through torture and threats, the autonomy of the military and its consequences and the ineffectiveness of the judiciary in upholding and preserving basic human rights. Some of the forms of human rights violations in recent years presented by human rights organizations include illegal arrests, secret and prolonged detention, torture, rape, extrajudicial execution, and fabrication of evidence.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Drug policy fails to target high-level traffickers. In the 1970s, as part of the international Operation Condor, the Mexican government deployed 10,000 soldiers and police to a poverty-stricken region in northern Mexico plagued by drug production and leftist insurgency. Hundreds of peasants were arrested, tortured, and jailed, but no major drug traffickers were captured.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The emergence of internal federal agencies that are often unregulated and unaccountable also contributes to the occurrence of human rights violations. The AFI of Mexico had been involved with numerous human rights violation cases involving torture and corruption. In one case, detainee Guillermo Velez Mendoza died while in the custody of AFI agents. The AFI agent implicated in his death was arrested and escaped on bail.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Similarly, nearly all AFI agents evaded punishment and arrest due to the corrupt executive and judiciary system and the supremacy of these agencies. The Attorney General's Office reported in December 2005 that one-fifth of its officers were under investigation for criminal activity, and that nearly 1,500 of AFI's 7,000 agents were under investigation for suspected criminal activity and 457 were facing charges. The AFI was finally declared a failure and was disbanded in 2009.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Ethnic prejudices have also emerged in the drug war, and poor and helpless indigenous communities have been targeted by the police, military, drug traffickers and the justice system. According to the National Human Rights Commission (Mexico) (Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos-CNDH), nearly one-third of the indigenous prisoners in Mexico in 2001 were in prison for federal crimes, which are mostly drug-related.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Another major concern is the lack of implementation of the Leahy Law in U.S. and the consequences of that in worsening the human rights situation in Mexico. Under this U.S. law, no member or unit of a foreign security force that is credibly alleged to have committed a human rights violation may receive U.S. security training. It is alleged that the U.S., by training the military and police force in Mexico, is in violation of the Leahy Law. In this case, the U.S. embassy officials in Mexico in charge of human rights and drug control programs are blamed with aiding and abetting these violations. In December 1997, a group of heavily armed Mexican special forces soldiers kidnapped twenty young men in Ocotlan, Jalisco, brutally torturing them and killing one. Six of the implicated officers had received U.S. training as part of the Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales (GAFE) training program.


title: Mexican drug war

text: As a result of "spillover" along the U.S.-bound drug trafficking routes and more stringent border enforcement, Mexico's northern border states have seen increased levels of drug consumption and abuse, including elevated rates of drug injection 10 to 15 times the national average. These rates are accompanied by mounting rates of HIV and STIs among injection drug users (IDUs) and sex workers, reaching a 5.5% prevalence in cities such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez, which also report STI rates of 64% and 83%, respectively. Violence and extortion of IDUs and sex workers directly and indirectly elevate the levels of risk behavior and poor health outcomes among members of these groups. Marginalization of these vulnerable groups by way of physical and sexual violence and extortion by police threatens the cross-over of infection from high-prevalence groups to the general population. In particular, decreased access to public health services such as syringe exchange programs and confiscation of syringes can precipitate a cascade of health harms. Geographic diffusion of epidemics from the northern border states elsewhere is also possible with the rotation of police and military personnel stationed in drug conflict areas with high infection prevalence.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The increase in violence related with organized crime has significantly deteriorated the conditions in which local journalism is practiced. In the first years of the 21st century, Mexico was considered the most dangerous country in the world to practice journalism, according to groups like the National Human Rights Commission, Reporters Without Borders, and the Committee to Protect Journalists. Between 2000 and 2012, several dozen journalists, including Miguel Ángel López Velasco, Luis Carlos Santiago, and Valentín Valdés Espinosa, were murdered there for covering narco-related news.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The offices of Televisa and local newspapers have been bombed. The cartels have also threatened to kill news reporters in the U.S. who have done coverage on the drug violence. Some media networks simply stopped reporting on drug crimes, while others have been infiltrated and corrupted by drug cartels. In 2011, Notiver journalist Miguel Angel Lopez Velasco, his wife, and his son were murdered in their home.


title: Mexican drug war

text: About 74 percent of the journalists killed since 1992 in Mexico have been reporters for print newspapers, followed in number by Internet media and radio at about 11 percent each. Television journalism only includes 4 percent of the deaths. These numbers are not proportional to the audience size of the different mediums; most Mexican households have a television, a large majority have a radio, but only a small number have the internet, and the circulation numbers for Mexican newspapers are relatively low.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Since harassment neutralized many traditional media outlets, anonymous, sensationalized blogs like Blog del Narco took on the role of reporting on events related to the drug war. The drug cartels responded by murdering bloggers and social media users. Twitter users have been tortured and killed for posting and denouncing information of the drug cartels' activities. In September 2011, user NenaDLaredo of the website Nuevo Laredo Envivo was allegedly murdered by Los Zetas.


title: Mexican drug war

text: In May 2012, several journalist murders occurred in Veracruz. Regina Martinez of "Proceso" was murdered in Xalapa. A few days later, three Veracruz photojournalists were tortured and killed and their dismembered bodies were dumped in a canal. They had worked for various news outlets, including Notiver, Diario AZ, and TV Azteca. Human rights groups condemned the murders and demanded the authorities investigate the crimes.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Since the start of the Mexican drug war in 2006, the drug trafficking organizations have slaughtered their rivals, killed policemen, and have increasingly targeted politicians – especially local leaders. Most of the places where these politicians have been killed are areas plagued by drug-related violence. Part of the strategy used by criminal groups behind the killings of local figures is the weakening of the local governments. For example, María Santos Gorrostieta Salazar, former mayor of Tiquicheo, Michoacán, who had survived three earlier assassination attempts and the murder of her husband, was abducted and beaten to death in November 2012. Extreme violence puts politicians at the mercy of the cartels, allowing them to increase their control of government structures and expand their influence.


title: Mexican drug war

text: In addition, because mayors usually appoint local police chiefs, they are seen by the cartels as key assets in their criminal activities to control the police forces in their areas of influence. The cartels also seek to control the local governments to win government contracts and concessions; these "public works" help them ingrain themselves in the community and gain the loyalty and respect of the communities in which they operate. Politicians are usually targeted for three reasons: (1) Political figures who are honest pose a direct threat to organized crime, and are consequently killed by the cartels; (2) Politicians make arrangements to protect a certain cartel and are killed by a rival cartel; and (3) A cartel kills politicians to heat up the turf of the rival cartel that operates in the area.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Cartels have engaged in kidnapping, ransom, murder, robbery, and extortion of migrants traveling from Central America through Mexico on their way to the United States and Canada. Cartels have also forced migrants to join their organization and work for them, a situation that has been described as slavery. Mass graves have been also discovered in Mexico containing bodies of migrants. In 2011, 177 bodies were discovered in a mass grave in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, the same area where the bodies of 72 migrants were discovered in 2010, where most victims "died of blunt force trauma to the head."


title: Mexican drug war

text: Cartels have also infiltrated the Mexican government's immigration agencies, and attacked and threatened immigration officers. The National Human Rights Commission of Mexico (Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos, CNDH) said that 11,000 migrants had been kidnapped in 6 months in 2010 by drug cartels.


title: Mexican drug war

text: There are documented links between the drug cartels and human trafficking for forced labor, forced prostitution, and rape. The wife of a drug lord described a system in which young girls became prostitutes and then were forced to work in drug factories. In the early 2010s, Los Zetas reportedly began to move into the prostitution business (including the prostitution of children) after previously only supplying women to already existing networks.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The U.S. State Department says that the practice of forced labor in Mexico is larger in extent than forced prostitution. Mexican journalists like Lydia Cacho have been threatened and forced into exile for reporting on these events.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Improved cooperation of Mexico with the U.S. led to the recent arrests of 755 Sinaloa Cartel suspects in U.S. cities and towns, but the U.S. market is being eclipsed by booming demand for cocaine in Europe, where users now pay twice the going U.S. rate. U.S. Attorney General announced September 17, 2008, that an international drug interdiction operation, Project Reckoning, involving law enforcement in the United States, Italy, Canada, Mexico and Guatemala had netted more than 500 organized crime members involved in the cocaine trade. The announcement highlighted the Italian-Mexican cocaine connection.


title: Mexican drug war

text: In December 2011, the government of Spain remarked that Mexican cartels have multiplied their operations in that country, becoming the main entry point of cocaine into Europe.


title: Mexican drug war

text: In 2012, it was reported that Mexican drug cartels had joined forces with the Sicilian Mafia, when Italian officials unearthed information that Palermo's black market, along with other Italian ports, was used by Mexico's drug cartels as a conduit to bring drugs to the European market, in which they had been trafficking drugs, particularly cocaine, throughout the Atlantic Ocean for over 10 years to Europe.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The Mexican Army crackdown has driven some cartels to seek a safer location for their operations across the border in Guatemala, attracted by corruption, weak policing and its position on the overland smuggling route. The smugglers pick up drugs from small planes that land at private airstrips hidden in the Guatemalan jungle. The cargo is then moved up through Mexico to the U.S. border. Guatemala has also arrested dozens of drug suspects and torched huge cannabis and poppy fields. The U.S. government sent speedboats and night-vision goggles under a regional drug aid package.


title: Mexican drug war

text: In February 2009, Los Zetas threatened to kill the president of Guatemala, Álvaro Colom. On March 1, 2010, Guatemala's chief of national police and the country's top anti-drugs official was arrested over alleged links to drug trafficking. A report from the Brookings Institution warns that, without proactive, timely efforts, the violence will spread throughout the Central American region.


title: Mexican drug war

text: According to the United States government, Los Zetas control 75% of Guatemala through violence, political corruption and infiltration in the country's institutions. Sources mentioned that Los Zetas gained ground in Guatemala after they killed several high-profile members and the supreme leader of "Los Leones", an organized crime group from Guatemala.


title: Mexican drug war

text: At least nine Mexican and Colombian drug cartels have established bases in 11 West African nations. They have reportedly worked closely with local criminal gangs to carve out a staging area for access to the lucrative European market. The Colombian and Mexican cartels have discovered that it is easier to smuggle large loads into West Africa and then break that up into smaller shipments to Europe – mostly Spain, the United Kingdom and France. Higher demand for cocaine in Western Europe in addition to North American interdiction campaigns has led to dramatically increased trafficking in the region: nearly 50% of all non-U.S. bound cocaine, or about 13% of all global flows, is now smuggled through West Africa.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The Mexican Army has severely curtailed the ability of the Mexican drug cartels to move cocaine inside the U.S. and Canada, prompting an upsurge in gang violence in Vancouver, where the cocaine price has increased from $23,300 to almost $39,000 per kilo as both the U.S. and Canadian drug markets experienced prolonged shortages. As evidence of this pressure, the U.S. government stated the amount of cocaine seized on U.S. soil dropped by 41 percent between early 2007 and mid-2008. Since 2009, Vancouver, British Columbia became the main Mexican drug cartels' center of operations in Canada.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Patricio Pazmiño, the Interior Minister of Ecuador, stated that the February 2021 riots at three prisons that took 79 lives were related to Mexican and Colombian drug gangs. The government intercepted a record 126 tons of cocaine in 2020.


title: Mexican drug war

text: On September 8, 2021 National Prosecutor Jorge Abbott declared that Mexican cartels were attempting to establish themselves in Chile. It is known that Sinaloa Cartel has attempted to use Chile as a transit route for the shipment of cocaine to Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The activity of Jalisco New Generation Cartel includes an attempt at establishing a drug laboratory in Iquique as well as the import of marihuana through the port of San Antonio.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The U.S. Justice Department considers the Mexican drug cartels to be the "greatest organized crime threat to the United States." During the first 18 months of Calderón's presidency, the Mexican government spent about US$7 billion in the war against drugs. In seeking partnership from the United States, Mexican officials point out that the illicit drug trade is a shared problem in need of a shared solution, and remark that most of the financing for the Mexican traffickers comes from American drug consumers. On March 25, 2009, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that "[America's] insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade", and that "the United States bears shared responsibility for the drug-fueled violence sweeping Mexico."


title: Mexican drug war

text: U.S. State Department officials knew that Mexican ex-president Felipe Calderón's willingness to work with the United States was unprecedented on issues of security, crime and drugs, so the U.S. Congress passed legislation in late June 2008 to provide Mexico and Central American countries with US$1.6 billion for the Mérida Initiative, a three-year international assistance plan. The Mérida Initiative provides Mexico and Central American countries with law enforcement training and equipment, as well as technical advice to strengthen the national justice systems. The Mérida Initiative does not include cash or weapons.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Currently, the Mexican drug cartels already have a presence in most major U.S. cities. In 2009, the Justice Department reported that Mexican drug cartels distribute drugs in nearly 200 cities across the United States, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta. Gang-related activity and violence has increased along the U.S. Southwest border region, as U.S.-based gangs act as enforcers for Mexican drug cartels.


title: Mexican drug war

text: U.S. authorities reported a spike in killings, kidnappings and home invasions connected to Mexican cartels, and at least 19 Americans were killed in 2008. Another 92 Americans were killed between June 2009 and June 2010.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The U.S. Joint Forces Command noted in a December 2008 report that in terms of worst-case scenarios, Mexico bears some consideration for sudden collapse in the next two decades as the government, its politicians, police, and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels. The Joint Forces Command stated concern that the conflict will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state over the next several years, and therefore would demand an American response based on the implications for homeland security alone. After the JFC broached this issue in its 2008 report, several journalists and academics have discussed the possibility that Mexico could become a failed state.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The Mexican government responded negatively to the U.S. government raising the prospect of Mexico becoming a failed state. In a February 2009 interview with the Associated Press, President Calderón said it was "absolutely false" to label his country a failed state. To smooth over relations with Mexico over this issue, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton personally visited Mexico City in March 2009, followed by a visit by President Barack Obama a month later.


title: Mexican drug war

text: In March 2009, the U.S. DHS said that it was considering using the National Guard to counter the threat of drug violence in Mexico from spreading to the U.S. The governors of Arizona and Texas have asked the federal government to send additional National Guard troops to help those already there supporting local law enforcement efforts against drug trafficking. Calls for National Guard deployment on the border greatly increased after the 2010 murder of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz, possibly at the hands of Mexican drug smugglers.


title: Mexican drug war

text: In March 2009, the Obama administration outlined plans to redeploy more than 500 federal agents to border posts and redirect $200 million to combat smuggling of illegal drugs, money and weapons. On May 25, 2010, President Obama authorized deployment of 1,200 National Guard troops to the U.S. border with Mexico to assist with border protection and enforcement activities, as well as help train additional Customs and Border Protection agents. The Washington Office on Latin America said the U.S. southwest border region remained calm, with a homicide rate lower than the national average.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Vicente Zambada Niebla, a member of the Sinaloa Cartel and son of Ismael Zambada García, one of the top drug lords in Mexico, claimed after his arrest to his attorneys that he and other top Sinaloa cartel members had received immunity by U.S. agents and a virtual licence to smuggle cocaine over the United States border, in exchange for intelligence about rival cartels engaged in the Mexican drug war.


title: Mexican drug war

text: In October 2013, two former federal agents and an ex-CIA contractor told an American television network that CIA operatives including Félix Rodríguez were involved in the kidnapping and murder of DEA covert agent Enrique Camarena, because he was a threat to the agency's drug operations in Mexico. According to the three men, the CIA was collaborating with drug traffickers moving cocaine and marijuana to the United States, and using its share of the profits to finance Nicaraguan Contra rebels attempting to overthrow Nicaragua's Sandinista government. A CIA spokesman responded, calling it "ridiculous" to suggest that the Agency had anything to do with the murder of a U.S. federal agent or the escape of his alleged killer.


title: Mexican drug war

text: According to former Presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and César Gaviria of Colombia, the United States-led drug war is pushing Latin America into a downward spiral; Mr. Cardoso said in a conference that "the available evidence indicates that the war on drugs is a failed war". The panel of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy commission, headed by Cardoso, stated that the countries involved in this war should remove the "taboos" and re-examine the anti-drug programs. Latin American governments have followed the advice of the U.S. to combat the drug war, but the policies had little effect. The commission made some recommendations to United States President Barack Obama to consider new policies, such as decriminalization of marijuana and to treat drug use as a public health problem and not as a security problem. The Council on Hemispheric Affairs states it is time to seriously consider drug decriminalization and legalization, a policy initiative that would be in direct opposition to the interests of criminal gangs.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Despite the fact that Mexican drug cartels and their Colombian suppliers generate, launder and remove $18 billion to $39 billion from the United States each year, the U.S. and Mexican governments have been criticized for their unwillingness or slow response to confront the various cartels' financial operations, including money laundering.


title: Mexican drug war

text: The U.S. DEA has identified the need to increase financial investigations relating to the movement of illegal drug funds to Mexico. The DEA states that attacking the financial infrastructure of drug cartels has to play a key role in any viable drug enforcement strategy. The U.S. DEA has noted that the U.S. and Mexican financial services industry continues to be a facilitator for drug money movement.


title: Mexican drug war

text: Following suit, in August 2010 President Felipe Calderón proposed sweeping new measures to crack down on the cash smuggling and money laundering. Calderón proposes a ban on cash purchases of real estate and of certain luxury goods that cost more than 100,000 pesos (about US$8,104.) His package would also require more businesses to report large transactions, such as real estate, jewelry and purchases of armor plating. In June 2010, Calderón "announced strict limits on the amount in U.S. dollars that can be deposited or exchanged in banks", but the proposed restrictions to financial institutions are facing tough opposition in the Mexican legislature.


title: Mexican drug war

text: In 2011, Wachovia, at one time a major U.S. bank, was implicated in laundering money for Mexican drug lords. In a settlement, Wachovia paid federal authorities $110 million in forfeiture. A U.S. Senate report from the permanent subcommittee for investigations revealed in July 2012 that HSBC – one of Europe's biggest banks- moved $7 billion in bulk cash from Mexico to the U.S., most of it suspected to assist Mexican drug lords and U.S. drug cartels in moving money to the U.S. While money laundering problems at HSBC have been flagged by regulators for nearly a decade, the bank continued to avoid compliance. On December 12, 2012, HSBC settled for a $1.93 billion fine.


title: Mexican drug war

text: RAND studies released in the mid-1990s found that using drug user treatment to reduce drug consumption in the United States is seven times more cost effective than law enforcement efforts alone, and it could potentially cut consumption by a third.


title: Mexican drug war

text: In FY2011, the Obama administration requested approximately $5.6 billion to support demand reduction. This includes a 13% increase for prevention and almost a 4% increase for treatment. The overall FY2011 counter-drug request for supply reduction and domestic law enforcement is $15.5 billion with $521.1 million in new funding.


title: Barbara Eden

text: Barbara Eden (born Barbara Jean Morehead; August 23, 1931) is an American actress, singer, and producer best known for her starring role as Jeannie in the sitcom "I Dream of Jeannie" (1965-1970). Other notable roles include Roslyn Pierce opposite Elvis Presley in "Flaming Star" (1960), Lieutenant (JG) Cathy Connors in "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (1961) and a single widowed mother, Stella Johnson, in the film "Harper Valley PTA" (1978). Due to the success of the film, Eden reprised her role as Stella Johnson in a two-season television series, "Harper Valley PTA".


title: Barbara Eden

text: Eden was born on August 23, 1931, in Tucson, Arizona, to Alice Mary (née Franklin) and Hubert Henry Morehead. She is a descendant of Benjamin Franklin. (For decades, her year of birth was thought to be 1934.) After her parents' divorce, she and her mother moved to San Francisco, where her mother married Harrison Connor Huffman, a telephone lineman, by whom she had a daughter, Eden's half-sister. The Great Depression deeply affected the family and, as they were unable to afford many luxuries, Alice entertained her children with singing.


title: Barbara Eden

text: Eden's first public performance was singing in the church choir, where she sang the solos. As a teenager, she sang in local bands (led by Howard Fredericks and Freddie Martin<ref name="sfchronicle/eden-sf-com"></ref>) for $10 (roughly equivalent to $157 in 2021) a night in night clubs. At age 16, she became a member of Actor's Equity, and studied singing at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and acting with the Elizabeth Holloway School of Theatre.<ref name="sfpl/b1005132~S0"></ref> She graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School in San Francisco in the Spring Class of 1949 and studied theater for one year at City College of San Francisco. As Barbara Huffman, she was elected Miss San Francisco in 1951 and she also entered the Miss California pageant.


title: Barbara Eden

text: Eden began her television career as a semiregular on "The Johnny Carson Show" in 1955. She also made featured appearances on shows such as "The West Point Story", "Highway Patrol", "Private Secretary", "I Love Lucy", "The Millionaire", "", "Crossroads", "Perry Mason", "Gunsmoke", "December Bride", "Bachelor Father", "Father Knows Best", "Adventures in Paradise", "The Andy Griffith Show", "Cain's Hundred", "Saints and Sinners", "The Virginian", "Slattery's People", "The Rogues", and the series finale of "Route 66". She guest starred in four episodes of "Burke's Law", playing different roles each time. She was an uncredited extra in the movie "The Tarnished Angels" with Rock Hudson, in partnership with 20th Century Fox studios. She then starred in the syndicated comedy TV series "How to Marry a Millionaire". The series is based on the 1953 film of the same name.


title: Barbara Eden

text: Film director Mark Robson, who later directed Eden in the movie "From the Terrace", took note of Eden's performance in a play with James Drury. and wanted her to work for 20th Century Fox studios. Her screen test was the Joanne Woodward role in "No Down Payment" (1957). Although she did not get the role, the studio gave Eden a contract. She did a screen test for the role of Betty Anderson in the 1957 film version of "Peyton Place", but Terry Moore got the role. She had minor roles in "Bailout at 43,000"; "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?"; and "The Wayward Girl", then became a leading lady in films, starring opposite Gary Crosby, Barry Coe, and Sal Mineo in "A Private's Affair". She had a co-starring role in "Flaming Star" (1960), with Elvis Presley.


title: Barbara Eden

text: The following year, she played in a supporting role as Lt. Cathy Connors in Irwin Allen's "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea". She starred in "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm", a Cinerama film directed by George Pal for MGM, and another Irwin Allen production for 20th Century Fox, "Five Weeks in a Balloon" (1962). She was the female lead in the 1962 Fox comedy "Swingin' Along", starring Tommy Noonan and Peter Marshall, in their final joint screen appearance. She did a screen test with Andy Williams for the 20th Century Fox movie "State Fair", but did not get the role.


title: Barbara Eden

text: Her last film for 20th Century Fox was "The Yellow Canary" (1963). She left Fox and began guest starring in television shows and acting in films for MGM, Universal, and Columbia. She played supporting roles over the next few years, including "The Brass Bottle" and "7 Faces of Dr. Lao".


title: Barbara Eden

text: In 1965, producer Sidney Sheldon signed Eden to star in his upcoming fantasy sitcom "I Dream of Jeannie" for NBC. After various brunette starlets and beauty queens unsuccessfully tried out for the role, Eden was approached by Sheldon, who had seen her in "The Brass Bottle" and had received numerous recommendations for Eden from various colleagues. Eden played Jeannie, a beautiful genie set free from her bottle by astronaut and United States Air Force Captain (later Major) Anthony "Tony" Nelson, played by Larry Hagman.


title: Barbara Eden

text: Eden played this role for five years and 139 episodes. Additionally in eight episodes, Eden donned a brunette wig to portray Jeannie's evil sister (also named Jeannie) who lusts after Tony Nelson, and in two episodes played Jeannie's hapless mother.


title: Barbara Eden

text: After "Jeannie", Eden starred in an unaired pilot, "The Barbara Eden Show", as well as another pilot, "The Toy Game". Her first TV movie was called "The Feminist and the Fuzz". Although she is best known for comedy, most of these films were dramas, as when she starred opposite her "Jeannie" co-star Larry Hagman in "A Howling in the Woods" (1971).


title: Barbara Eden

text: In "The Stranger Within" (1974), Eden played housewife Ann Collins, a woman impregnated by extraterrestrials. Later, Eden played a policewoman-turned-private detective investigating the disappearance of a missing heiress, in the critically acclaimed TV movie "" (1977). She starred in and co-produced, with her own production company (MI-Bar Productions), the NBC-TV romantic comedy movie "The Secret Life of Kathy McCormick" (1988). She also starred in and produced the romantic comedy TV movie "Opposites Attract" (1990), co-starring John Forsythe.


title: Barbara Eden

text: In 1978, she starred in the feature film "Harper Valley PTA", based on the popular country song. This led to a namesake television series in 1981. In both the movie and the TV series, Eden played the protagonist Stella Johnson. It was a comedy version of "Peyton Place", with Anne Francine playing wealthy villainess Flora Simpson Reilly. In one episode, Stella dressed in a blue and gold genie costume, and in another she played both Stella and her cousin Della Smith (similar to Jeannie's evil twin-sister character). It debuted January 16, 1981, winning 11 of its 13 time slots during the first season. It was renamed simply "Harper Valley" when it began its second season on October 29, 1981. During this time, Eden also became the spokeswoman for L'eggs pantyhose, and appeared in a series of print ads and TV commercials for the brand from 1979 to 1983.


title: Barbara Eden

text: From April 3 through September 16, 1984, Eden starred in the Lee Guber and Shelly Gross national production of the John Kander and Fred Ebb Tony Award-winning musical comedy "Woman of the Year", playing the role of Tess Harding Craig, alongside Don Chastain (as Sam Craig), and Marilyn Cooper. In 1990, Eden played a recurring role as a billionairess seeking revenge against J.R. Ewing in five episodes of the final season of "Dallas", as the captivating character LeeAnn de la Vega, reuniting her with Hagman. In her final episode, the character admits that her maiden name is Nelson (a production gag, as "Nelson" was the surname of Hagman's character and Eden's character's married name in "I Dream of Jeannie"). In 1991 she starred in the stage play "Same Time, Next Year" with Wayne Rogers, and reprised her role of Jeannie in a television movie-of-the-week. In 1993, she starred in an 11-city national tour of the play "Last of the Red Hot Lovers" with Don Knotts.


title: Barbara Eden

text: Eden starred in such musical comedies as "Nite Club Confidential" (playing the role of Kay Goodman, in 1996), "The Sound of Music", "Annie Get Your Gun", "South Pacific" with Robert Goulet, "The Pajama Game" with John Raitt, and "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" playing Lorelei Lee. She has been a musical guest star in many variety television shows, including 21 Bob Hope specials, "The Carol Burnett Show", "The Jonathan Winters Show", "The Jerry Lewis Show", "This Is Tom Jones", "Tony Orlando and Dawn", and "Donny and Marie". She released an album titled "Miss Barbara Eden" in 1967 on Dot Records.


title: Barbara Eden

text: From 2000 to 2004, Eden starred in the national touring production of the play "The Odd Couple: The Female Version" playing the role of Florence Unger opposite Rita MacKenzie as Olive Madison. In March 2006, Eden reunited with her former co-star Larry Hagman for a publicity tour in New York City to promote the first-season DVD of "I Dream of Jeannie". They appeared together on "Good Morning America", "The View", "Access Hollywood", "Entertainment Tonight", "Martha", and "Showbiz Tonight", among other shows.


title: Barbara Eden

text: In March 2006, Hagman and Eden again reunited, this time onstage in New York for "Love Letters" at the College of Staten Island, and at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. This was Eden's first return-visit to the academy since appearing in the 1956 Ziv Television Programs, "The West Point Story."


title: Barbara Eden

text: Eden starred in the play "Love Letters" with Hal Linden in 2006, and a guest-starring role on the Lifetime series "Army Wives", written and produced by her niece Katherine Fugate. In December 2008 she began filming the TV movie "Always and Forever" for the Hallmark Channel, which aired in October 2009.


title: Barbara Eden

text: In May 2013, Eden appeared with former US President Bill Clinton, Elton John, and Fergie at the opening ceremony of the 21st Life Ball in Vienna, where Eden wore her famous Jeannie harem costume. In late 2013, Eden was cast in the movie "One Song", filmed in Excelsior, Minnesota.


title: Barbara Eden

text: Eden wrote a memoir, "Jeannie Out of the Bottle", which was released on April 5, 2011, by Crown Archetype, a division of Random House. It debuted at number 14 on "The New York Times Best Seller List.


title: Barbara Eden

text: "Jeannie Out of the Bottle" chronicles her personal life and Hollywood career of more than 50 years, and includes intimate details about her early childhood, her rise to popularity in her teens and early 20s, her co-stars over the years, and her work leading up to "I Dream of Jeannie". It also covers her marriages to Michael Ansara (1958–1974), Charles Fegert (1977–1982), and Jon Eicholtz (1991–present), and her "emotional breakdown" following the 2001 death of her son Matthew Ansara of a drug overdose.


title: Barbara Eden

text: In June 2021, Eden revealed while talking about her children's book "Barbara and the Djinn", that she and her husband Jon Eicholtz had recovered from COVID-19.


title: Barbara Eden

text: On November 17, 1988, Eden received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to television. In 1990, the University of West Los Angeles School of Law granted Eden an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.


title: Lucile Randon

text: Lucile Randon (; born 11 February 1904), also known as Sister André (), is a French supercentenarian. At the age of , she has been the world's oldest verified living person since 19 April 2022, following the death of Kane Tanaka. She is currently the fourth-oldest human ever recorded, as well as the oldest known survivor of the COVID-19 pandemic, having tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 a month before her 117th birthday.


title: Lucile Randon

text: Randon is a Roman Catholic nun, having converted to Catholicism as a young adult, working as a governess, teacher, and missionary before retiring at the age of 75. She has resided in a nursing home in Toulon, France, since 2009.


title: Lucile Randon

text: Randon was born on 11 February 1904 in Alès, France, to Paul Randon and Alphonsine Delphine Yéta Soutoul. Her living siblings included three older brothers and a twin sister named Lydie who died a year after they were born. She became a governess to three children in Marseille when she was twelve years old in 1916. She took on more responsibility when she was hired as both a governess and teacher to a prominent family at Versailles in 1922. Her work as a governess and teacher at Versailles lasted until 1936.


title: Lucile Randon

text: Randon grew up in a Protestant family and her grandfather was a pastor. She converted to Catholicism in 1923 at the age of 19. She later joined the Catholic order Daughters of Charity in 1944, taking the name Sister André in honour of her elder brother. After World War II ended, Randon went on a mission to a hospital in Vichy, where she served orphans and elders. Her mission lasted 18 years until she was sent to another hospital at La Baume-d'Hostun, Drôme for night duty in 1963. Randon retired from full-time work in 1979 and entered the EHPAD in the Marches at Savoie, where she continued to care for the elderly until she was 100 years old herself. She moved to a retirement home in Toulon on 25 October 2009, at the age of 105, where she still resides.


title: Lucile Randon

text: Randon is now blind and has been wheelchair-bound since the early 2010s. On 16 January 2021, Randon tested positive for COVID-19 in an outbreak at her retirement home that infected 81 of 88 residents. She was asymptomatic and tested negative days before her 117th birthday, making her the oldest known survivor of the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Lucile Randon

text: After the death of Honorine Rondello on 19 October 2017, she became the oldest living person in France. When she turned 115 in 2019, Pope Francis sent her a personal letter and blessed rosary. In 2021, she said she was happy at her home, although wished to join her grandparents and brother André in heaven.


title: Lucile Randon

text: On her 118th birthday in February 2022, Randon received a birthday note from French President Emmanuel Macron. On 19 April 2022, she became the world's oldest verified living person after the death of Kane Tanaka. Randon stated she felt this was a "sad honour" as she would "be better off in heaven"; however, she also expressed joy at being "pampered" by her family. She continues to enjoy chocolate and a glass of wine every day.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting, female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and female circumcision, is the ritual cutting or removal of some or all of the external female genitalia. The practice is found in some countries of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and within communities abroad from countries in which FGM is common. UNICEF estimated, in 2016, that 200 million women in 30 countries—Indonesia, Iraq, Yemen, and 27 African countries including Egypt—had been subjected to one or more types of FGM.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Typically carried out by a traditional circumciser using a blade, FGM is conducted from days after birth to puberty and beyond. In half of the countries for which national statistics are available, most girls are cut before the age of five. Procedures differ according to the country or ethnic group. They include removal of the clitoral hood (type 1-a) and clitoral glans (1-b); removal of the inner labia; and removal of the inner and outer labia and closure of the vulva. In this last procedure, known as infibulation, a small hole is left for the passage of urine and menstrual fluid; the vagina is opened for intercourse and opened further for childbirth.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: The practice is rooted in gender inequality, attempts to control women's sexuality, and ideas about purity, modesty, and beauty. It is usually initiated and carried out by women, who see it as a source of honour, and who fear that failing to have their daughters and granddaughters cut will expose the girls to social exclusion. Adverse health effects depend on the type of procedure; they can include recurrent infections, difficulty urinating and passing menstrual flow, chronic pain, the development of cysts, an inability to get pregnant, complications during childbirth, and fatal bleeding. There are no known health benefits.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: There have been international efforts since the 1970s to persuade practitioners to abandon FGM, and it has been outlawed or restricted in most of the countries in which it occurs, although the laws are often poorly enforced. Since 2010, the United Nations has called upon healthcare providers to stop performing all forms of the procedure, including reinfibulation after childbirth and symbolic "nicking" of the clitoral hood. The opposition to the practice is not without its critics, particularly among anthropologists, who have raised difficult questions about cultural relativism and the universality of human rights.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Until the 1980s, FGM was widely known in English as "female circumcision", implying an equivalence in severity with male circumcision. From 1929 the Kenya Missionary Council referred to it as the sexual mutilation of women, following the lead of Marion Scott Stevenson, a Church of Scotland missionary. References to the practice as mutilation increased throughout the 1970s. In 1975 Rose Oldfield Hayes, an American anthropologist, used the term "female genital mutilation" in the title of a paper in "American Ethnologist", and four years later Fran Hosken called it mutilation in her influential "The Hosken Report: Genital and Sexual Mutilation of Females". The Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children began referring to it as female genital mutilation in 1990, and the World Health Organization (WHO) followed suit in 1991. Other English terms include "female genital cutting" (FGC) and "female genital mutilation/cutting" (FGM/C), preferred by those who work with practitioners.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: In countries where FGM is common, the practice's many variants are reflected in dozens of terms, often alluding to purification. In the Bambara language, spoken mostly in Mali, it is known as "bolokoli" ("washing your hands") and in the Igbo language in eastern Nigeria as "isa aru" or "iwu aru" ("having your bath"). A common Arabic term for purification has the root "t-h-r", used for male and female circumcision ("tahur" and "tahara"). It is also known in Arabic as "khafḍ" or "khifaḍ". Communities may refer to FGM as "pharaonic" for infibulation and ""sunna"" circumcision for everything else; "sunna" means "path or way" in Arabic and refers to the tradition of Muhammad, although none of the procedures are required within Islam. The term "infibulation" derives from "fibula", Latin for clasp; the Ancient Romans reportedly fastened clasps through the foreskins or labia of slaves to prevent sexual intercourse. The surgical infibulation of women came to be known as pharaonic circumcision in Sudan and as Sudanese circumcision in Egypt. In Somalia, it is known simply as "qodob" ("to sew up").


title: Female genital mutilation

text: The procedures are generally performed by a traditional circumciser (cutter or "exciseuse") in the girls' homes, with or without anaesthesia. The cutter is usually an older woman, but in communities where the male barber has assumed the role of health worker, he will also perform FGM. When traditional cutters are involved, non-sterile devices are likely to be used, including knives, razors, scissors, glass, sharpened rocks, and fingernails. According to a nurse in Uganda, quoted in 2007 in "The Lancet", a cutter would use one knife on up to 30 girls at a time. In several countries, health professionals are involved; in Egypt, 77 percent of FGM procedures, and in Indonesia over 50 percent, were performed by medical professionals as of 2008 and 2016.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: The WHO, UNICEF, and UNFPA issued a joint statement in 1997 defining FGM as "all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs whether for cultural or other non-therapeutic reasons". The procedures vary according to ethnicity and individual practitioners; during a 1998 survey in Niger, women responded with over 50 terms when asked what was done to them. Translation problems are compounded by the women's confusion over which type of FGM they experienced, or even whether they experienced it. Studies have suggested that survey responses are unreliable. A 2003 study in Ghana found that in 1995 four percent said they had not undergone FGM, but in 2000 said they had, while 11 percent switched in the other direction. In Tanzania in 2005, 66 percent reported FGM, but a medical exam found that 73 percent had undergone it. In Sudan in 2006, a significant percentage of infibulated women and girls reported a less severe type.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Standard questionnaires from United Nations bodies ask women whether they or their daughters have undergone the following: (1) cut, no flesh removed (symbolic nicking); (2) cut, some flesh removed; (3) sewn closed; or (4) type not determined/unsure/doesn't know. The most common procedures fall within the "cut, some flesh removed" category and involve complete or partial removal of the clitoral glans. The World Health Organization (a UN agency) created a more detailed typology in 1997: Types I–II vary in how much tissue is removed; Type III is equivalent to the UNICEF category "sewn closed"; and Type IV describes miscellaneous procedures, including symbolic nicking.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: "Type I" is "partial or total removal of the clitoral glans (the external and visible part of the clitoris, which is a sensitive part of the female genitals), and/or the prepuce/clitoral hood (the fold of skin surrounding the clitoral glans)". Type Ia involves removal of the clitoral hood only. This is rarely performed alone. The more common procedure is Type Ib (clitoridectomy), the complete or partial removal of the clitoral glans (the visible tip of the clitoris) and clitoral hood. The circumciser pulls the clitoral glans with her thumb and index finger and cuts it off.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: "Type II" (excision) is the complete or partial removal of the inner labia, with or without removal of the clitoral glans and outer labia. Type IIa is removal of the inner labia; Type IIb, removal of the clitoral glans and inner labia; and Type IIc, removal of the clitoral glans, inner and outer labia. "Excision" in French can refer to any form of FGM.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: "Type III" (infibulation or pharaonic circumcision), the "sewn closed" category, is the removal of the external genitalia and fusion of the wound. The inner and/or outer labia are cut away, with or without removal of the clitoral glans. Type III is found largely in northeast Africa, particularly Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan (although not in South Sudan). According to one 2008 estimate, over eight million women in Africa are living with Type III FGM. According to UNFPA in 2010, 20 percent of women with FGM have been infibulated. In Somalia, according to Edna Adan Ismail, the child squats on a stool or mat while adults pull her legs open; a local anaesthetic is applied if available:


title: Female genital mutilation

text: The amputated parts might be placed in a pouch for the girl to wear. A single hole of 2–3 mm is left for the passage of urine and menstrual fluid. The vulva is closed with surgical thread, or agave or acacia thorns, and might be covered with a poultice of raw egg, herbs, and sugar. To help the tissue bond, the girl's legs are tied together, often from hip to ankle; the bindings are usually loosened after a week and removed after two to six weeks. If the remaining hole is too large in the view of the girl's family, the procedure is repeated.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: The vagina is opened for sexual intercourse, for the first time either by a midwife with a knife or by the woman's husband with his penis. In some areas, including Somaliland, female relatives of the bride and groom might watch the opening of the vagina to check that the girl is a virgin. The woman is opened further for childbirth ("defibulation" or "deinfibulation"), and closed again afterwards ("reinfibulation"). Reinfibulation can involve cutting the vagina again to restore the pinhole size of the first infibulation. This might be performed before marriage, and after childbirth, divorce and widowhood. Hanny Lightfoot-Klein interviewed hundreds of women and men in Sudan in the 1980s about sexual intercourse with Type III:


title: Female genital mutilation

text: "Type IV" is "[a]ll other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes", including pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterization. It includes nicking of the clitoris (symbolic circumcision), burning or scarring the genitals, and introducing substances into the vagina to tighten it. Labia stretching is also categorized as Type IV. Common in southern and eastern Africa, the practice is supposed to enhance sexual pleasure for the man and add to the sense of a woman as a closed space. From the age of eight, girls are encouraged to stretch their inner labia using sticks and massage. Girls in Uganda are told they may have difficulty giving birth without stretched labia.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: A definition of FGM from the WHO in 1995 included gishiri cutting and angurya cutting, found in Nigeria and Niger. These were removed from the WHO's 2008 definition because of insufficient information about prevalence and consequences. Angurya cutting is excision of the hymen, usually performed seven days after birth. Gishiri cutting involves cutting the vagina's front or back wall with a blade or penknife, performed in response to infertility, obstructed labour, and other conditions. In a study by Nigerian physician Mairo Usman Mandara, over 30 percent of women with gishiri cuts were found to have vesicovaginal fistulae (holes that allow urine to seep into the vagina).


title: Female genital mutilation

text: FGM harms women's physical and emotional health throughout their lives. It has no known health benefits. The short-term and late complications depend on the type of FGM, whether the practitioner has had medical training, and whether they used antibiotics and sterilized or single-use surgical instruments. In the case of Type III, other factors include how small a hole was left for the passage of urine and menstrual blood, whether surgical thread was used instead of agave or acacia thorns, and whether the procedure was performed more than once (for example, to close an opening regarded as too wide or re-open one too small).


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Common short-term complications include swelling, excessive bleeding, pain, urine retention, and healing problems/wound infection. A 2014 systematic review of 56 studies suggested that over one in ten girls and women undergoing any form of FGM, including symbolic nicking of the clitoris (Type IV), experience immediate complications, although the risks increased with Type III. The review also suggested that there was under-reporting. Other short-term complications include fatal bleeding, anaemia, urinary infection, septicaemia, tetanus, gangrene, necrotizing fasciitis (flesh-eating disease), and endometritis. It is not known how many girls and women die as a result of the practice, because complications may not be recognized or reported. The practitioners' use of shared instruments is thought to aid the transmission of hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV, although no epidemiological studies have shown this.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Late complications vary depending on the type of FGM. They include the formation of scars and keloids that lead to strictures and obstruction, epidermoid cysts that may become infected, and neuroma formation (growth of nerve tissue) involving nerves that supplied the clitoris. An infibulated girl may be left with an opening as small as 2–3 mm, which can cause prolonged, drop-by-drop urination, pain while urinating, and a feeling of needing to urinate all the time. Urine may collect underneath the scar, leaving the area under the skin constantly wet, which can lead to infection and the formation of small stones. The opening is larger in women who are sexually active or have given birth by vaginal delivery, but the urethra opening may still be obstructed by scar tissue. Vesicovaginal or rectovaginal fistulae can develop (holes that allow urine or faeces to seep into the vagina). This and other damage to the urethra and bladder can lead to infections and incontinence, pain during sexual intercourse and infertility.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Painful periods are common because of the obstruction to the menstrual flow, and blood can stagnate in the vagina and uterus. Complete obstruction of the vagina can result in hematocolpos and hematometra (where the vagina and uterus fill with menstrual blood). The swelling of the abdomen and lack of menstruation can resemble pregnancy. Asma El Dareer, a Sudanese physician, reported in 1979 that a girl in Sudan with this condition was killed by her family.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: FGM may place women at higher risk of problems during pregnancy and childbirth, which are more common with the more extensive FGM procedures. Infibulated women may try to make childbirth easier by eating less during pregnancy to reduce the baby's size. In women with vesicovaginal or rectovaginal fistulae, it is difficult to obtain clear urine samples as part of prenatal care, making the diagnosis of conditions such as pre-eclampsia harder. Cervical evaluation during labour may be impeded and labour prolonged or obstructed. Third-degree laceration (tears), anal-sphincter damage and emergency caesarean section are more common in infibulated women.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Neonatal mortality is increased. The WHO estimated in 2006 that an additional 10–20 babies die per 1,000 deliveries as a result of FGM. The estimate was based on a study conducted on 28,393 women attending delivery wards at 28 obstetric centres in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sudan. In those settings all types of FGM were found to pose an increased risk of death to the baby: 15 percent higher for Type I, 32 percent for Type II, and 55 percent for Type III. The reasons for this were unclear, but may be connected to genital and urinary tract infections and the presence of scar tissue. According to the study, FGM was associated with an increased risk to the mother of damage to the perineum and excessive blood loss, as well as a need to resuscitate the baby, and stillbirth, perhaps because of a long .


title: Female genital mutilation

text: According to a 2015 systematic review there is little high-quality information available on the psychological effects of FGM. Several small studies have concluded that women with FGM develop anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Feelings of shame and betrayal can develop when women leave the culture that practices FGM and learn that their condition is not the norm, but within the practicing culture, they may view their FGM with pride because for them it signifies beauty, respect for tradition, chastity and hygiene. Studies on sexual function have also been small. A 2013 meta-analysis of 15 studies involving 12,671 women from seven countries concluded that women with FGM were twice as likely to report no sexual desire and 52 percent more likely to report dyspareunia (painful sexual intercourse). One-third reported reduced sexual feelings.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Aid agencies define the prevalence of FGM as the percentage of the 15–49 age group that has experienced it. These figures are based on nationally representative household surveys known as Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), developed by Macro International and funded mainly by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID); and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) conducted with financial and technical help from UNICEF. These surveys have been carried out in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere roughly every five years since 1984 and 1995 respectively. The first to ask about FGM was the 1989–1990 DHS in northern Sudan. The first publication to estimate FGM prevalence based on DHS data (in seven countries) was written by Dara Carr of Macro International in 1997.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Questions the women are asked during the surveys include: "Was the genital area just nicked/cut without removing any flesh? Was any flesh (or something) removed from the genital area? Was your genital area sewn?" Most women report "cut, some flesh removed" (Types I and II).