Norma Andrade, a leader of the organization Our Daughters Return Home and a critical voice demanding justice in the long string of "femicides" in Ciudad Juárez is stable condition after being shot twice Dec. 2, as she drove home from her job as a teacher in the violent Mexican border city. Five shots were fired altogether. Chihuahua state police said she was the apparent victim of a carjacking or robbery. But the Mexico office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement calling for authorities to take actions to protect human rights defenders in the country. (UN News Centre, Nov. 6; CNN, Dec. 6; El Paso Times, Dec. 3)

The attack came as Juárez has been outraged by the case of Adriana Sarmiento Enríquez—who disappeared at the age of 15 in 2008, and whose remains evidently sat in the Juárez morgue for more than two years. Said her mother, Ernestina Enríquez Fierro: "I don't know who to blame for it. It's not fair. Why do they play with our feelings? They are completely heartless. We are like puppets on the authorities' hands." Sarmiento's remains were found in the Valle de Juárez on Nov. 5, 2009. On Nov. 30, the Chihuahua prosecutor's office announced identification of the remains and turned them over to her relatives. (El Paso Times, Dec. 4)

See our last posts on Mexico, the narco wars and the human rights crisis.

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