Juarez death toll is 3,000 so far in 2010

JUAREZ, Mexico, Dec. 15 (UPI) -- The body count in Juarez, Mexico, already reached 3,000, 10 times more than the annual number of deaths the city recorded three years ago, officials said.

With just two weeks until the new year, 2010 has become the deadliest year Juarez ever has seen, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state attorney general's office told CNN Tuesday.

"The state attorney general's office had the number at 2,998 as of Monday and with the two murders today (Tuesday), that brings us to 3,000," spokesman Arturo Sandoval said in a phone interview.

The two deaths Tuesday occurred separately, Sandoval said. One victim was found shot to death in a car and the other was shot and killed in front of relatives, he said.

Before drug-related violence struck the city in 2008, the worst death toll in Juarez was about 300, Sandoval told CNN.

"Last year we had 2,656. The year before -- in 2008 -- it was around 1,500 and in 2007 we had about 300," he said. "Can you imagine?"