Rape and murder suspects in Ciudad Juárez arrested

January 2, 2006 A 17-year-old girl was reportedly raped and murdered in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico's fifth largest city, on Christmas Eve, and now 3 have been arrested in the incident. According to spokeswoman Claudia Elena Banuelos of the Chihuahua Attorney General's office, the 3 men were drinking with the victim when one proposed having sex with her. When the victim refused the sex, the attackers raped her, according to the spokeswoman. One of the attackers then allegedly hit her in the head with a blunt object several times, and ran away when he saw she was unconscious. The 3 attackers were identified as Mario Loya Aguirre, Eleazar Pena Navarro and Jorge Armando Sifuentes Martinez.

This was the 32nd murder of a woman in Ciudad Juárez in 2005 &mdash; police have reportedly solved 26 of these murders.

More than 350 women have been murdered in Juárez since 1993, according to federal investigators. A report from Amnesty International indicates that as many as 400 women may be missing. At least a third of these killings followed a similar pattern in that young women were assaulted, strangled, and dumped in the desert. Police incompetence, cover-ups, and even involvement in the murders have been alleged over the years.