Aerial Pictures of Cuidad Juarez, Mexico

Here is a few pictures I took as the airplane I was in flew over Ciudad Juarez, Mexico after taking off from El Paso International Airport just across the border in El Paso, Texas:

If you look closely you can see the hill above Juarez that has writing on it.  The writing in Spanish says “Cd. Juárez – La Biblia Es La Verdad – Leela” which translate to “The Bible is the Truth”.  This message was painted by the evangelical pastor Gerardo Bermudez in 1987 and his church continues to maintain the upkeep of this message to this day:

In this picture you can see some of the slums that lie on the west side of Juarez that are easily seen from US I-10 when driving into El Paso from the west side:

The first time I drove into El Paso I thought these slums were in El Paso until I noticed the river and fences that denote the international border.  That is how close though these slums are to I-10 and the reason why the highways and roads in El Paso have been shut down before due to gun battles in Juarez that saw bullets flying over El Paso.

Here are the hills on the outskirts of the city where who knows how many bodies have been dumped in the past decade due to the ongoing drug wars and general lawlessness in the city:

All in all though it is hard to imagine from the air how dangerous this city is which has seen more violence than Baghdad, Iraq or Kandahar, Afghanistan.  I actually visited Juarez over a decade ago when the drug war was not raging and found it to be an interesting place to check out while in El Paso.  Now flying over the city is about as close as want to get due to the outrageous violence that has engulfed the city.