At least 40 people have been murdered in drug-related violence in one Mexican city over the last 72 hours.
The city, Ciudad Juarez, has been the site of much drug-related violence.
‘These figures are quite high. It is one of the most violent weekends in Ciudad Juarez in years,’ said a spokesman for the Chihuahua state prosecutor's office.
‘On Friday we had 20 murders in Ciudad Juarez, on Saturday 19 and today Sunday there was one so far,’ said the spokesman, adding that the killings were apparently related to organised drug crime, based on the type of weapons used.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed in Ciudad Juarez last year, according to official government statistics, a bloodletting that has driven tens of thousands of people into exile and forced the closure of roughly 70% of the city's stores.
Another ten people were killed in other shootings in Ciudad Juarez during a 24-hour period ending 11 February, bringing the overall death toll for a single day to 18.
On Saturday, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said that Mexico would get four new battalions in its expanding and bloody military clash with drug traffickers close to the US border.
Mr Calderon did not immediately give a figure for the number of additional troops or those now in the region, where rival cartels are battling for control of lucrative drug-trafficking routes into the United States.
More than 34,600 people have been killed in drug-related violence since December 2006, when Mr Calderon's government deployed soldiers and federal police in a widespread crackdown on the illegal cartels.
