Mexican teachers get training to deal with shootings

Ciudad Juarez (Mexico), Aug 7 (IANS/EFE) Teachers in this crime-ridden Mexican border city are receiving special training from police in how to react when shootings occur in or near schools, officials said.

The training course for teachers includes simulated gunbattles, Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz said Friday.

“Unfortunately, it is a reality we are experiencing and we have to act with reality,” he said. “The one who, more than anyone, needs to know what to do (in the face of violence) is the teacher.”

Students at a number of schools in Ciudad Juarez have witnessed shootouts this year and the fatalities have included parents coming to way to pick up their children.

In May, six men were gunned down in front of a kindergarten in the Juarez suburb of Loma Blanca as 50 youngsters and some of their parents cowered inside.

A total of 1,700 gangland killings occurred in Ciudad Juarez during the first seven months of this year, up 47.6 percent from the same period in 2009, officials said earlier this week.

Ciudad Juarez, a city of more than 1 million where nearly 6,000 people have been murdered since 2008, is the main battlefield in a war pitting drug cartels against each other and the Mexican security forces.

–IANS/EFE