Tens of thousands of Mexicans are fleeing drug violence on the U.S. border in an exodus that is decimating a large city and threatening to leave a major manufacturing area short of skilled workers, according to Reuters. Up to 200,000 people have left Ciudad Juarez -- more than 10 percent of its 1.5 million population -- in 18 months from fear of a turf war between cartels which has made the city one of the world's deadliest places. Drug murders reach up to a dozen a day and bullet-riddled vehicles and bodies in pools of blood are commonplace on busy streets in a collapse of law and order. Estimates vary on the size of the exodus but academics and Ciudad Juarez officials put it at between 75,000 and 200,000 people since mid-2008. An economic crisis has also hit the city but violence is the main reason for the exodus, city officials say.
