Ciudad Juarez has had almost 2000 homicides — almost all brutal executions — through mid-October this year, up from 1,171 for the same period in 2008. There have been 195 murders in the first half of this month alone. The killings, averaging seven a day in the city of 1.5 million, can be blamed on an escalating drug war between the Sinaloa cartel run by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the most-wanted man in Mexico, and the Juarez Cartel. The cartels are fighting to control the lucrative smuggling route between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, just across the border in Texas. While Ciudad Juarez is clearly the most violent city in Mexico, cartel battles continue to take lives throughout the country.