Universities Warn Students to Avoid Spring Breaks in Mexico
Violence in Mexican cities including Tijuana, Juarez and Nogales has universities advising students not to Spring Break in Mexico. The violence has included shooutouts in public places like malls. Three Arizona universities are advising against it reports azcentral.com.
Universities that warn students of violence in Mexico are providing "sage advice," said Special Agent Tom Mangan, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
"We have had documented violence, attacks, killings, shootouts with the drug cartels involving not only the military but law-enforcement personnel," he said. "It is indiscriminate violence, and certainly innocent people have been caught up in that collateral damage."
Mexico's drug cartels are waging a bloody fight for smuggling routes and against government forces, dumping beheaded bodies onto streets, carrying out massacres and even tossing grenades into a crowd of Independence Day revelers - an attack that killed eight people in September.
Mangan said most of the violence is taking place in border towns and along roads at night, not at most popular tourist destinations.
MSNBC reports that last Friday the U.S. State Department issued a travel advisory Friday warning of an "increasingly violent" conflict between the government and drug cartels. The U.S. Government also has an informative "Know Before You Go" page about Spring Break in Mexico here.
