When the convoy of armed men arrived in her village in northeastern Mexico, she and her neighbors scrambled to get out of the way. Under a sudden hail of bullets, the soft-spoken year-old's first thought was of others. She didn't realize she herself was bleeding profusely, as she scrambled to move her deaf and frail elderly father to safety.
Nothing at all [ I just asked my father 'come with me. Let's go. It was not until a while later that I realized I had been shot, because I noticed I was bleeding a lot," Estrada said. This small town of only about 3, in the Mexican northeastern state of Coahuila, made headlines around the world last month, when an hours-long gunfight battles between a criminal group and security forces there that left buildings riddled with bullet holes and claimed the lives of 25 people.
In the aftermath, police confiscated 17 vehicles. Four had been fitted with sniper rifles. They may have succeeded -- there is a sense of fear now in this town, that once might have been described as sleepy.
Another resident of Villa Union, who preferred not to be identified for fear of reprisals, tells CNN she's glad she never opened her door. The gunshots were so loud, she said, that at first, she thought they were explosions at a nearby gas station. Municipal workers have been devoted to repairing the badly damaged town hall, sweeping away debris and picking up broken objects under guard of military personnel.
But despite the patched holes, it remains plainly visible that a barrage of bullets once fell on its walls. The former Mexico City mayor had been elected to the country's highest office in part because he promised to improve security in Mexico, but his country's death toll from violence is rising instead.
