Ignacio Alvarado, 40, is a freelance investigative reporter and Reuters contributor in the northern Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez where he was born and now lives with his wife and two children. He has been a journalist for 20 years -- seven in Mexico City, the rest in Ciudad Juarez. In the following story, slugged WITNESS-MEXICO and headlined 'WITNESS - Life in Mexico's deadliest drug war city,' he describes life in an increasingly lawless city where it's becoming almost commonplace to see daylight drug gang shootings and walk past dumped bodies.

AlertNet news is provided by