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The streets of Ciudad Juárez tell a story written in silence and cold fabric. Between January and October 2026, the city recorded 97 instances where victims of homicide were discovered wrapped in blankets-a grim practice locally known as ‘encobijados’. This figure represents more than one in five of the 442 homicides documented during that ten-month period.
Mapping the Periphery
An analysis conducted with the support of the Ficosec Citizen Observatory reveals that these findings are not distributed uniformly. The bodies appear along dikes, near cemeteries, at the foot of hills, and on dirt roads-places where the city’s urban sprawl meets the desolate periphery. The suroriente sector, including Riberas del Bravo and the Valle de Juárez, accounts for over 37 percent of these cases.
Conversely, the analysis highlights areas of total absence. The ‘Zona Dorada’ and the historic city center remain untouched by this specific form of abandonment, creating a stark map of inequality in how violence manifests across the urban landscape.
Practicality or Symbolic Terror?
Why use blankets? Security consultant Alexei Chévez suggests a pragmatic, albeit chilling, explanation: ‘It is easier to transport, it does not leak fluids, and you do not have to look at the victim.’ For perpetrators, the blanket acts as a barrier, distancing them from the physical reality of the violence they have inflicted, particularly in cases involving torture or mutilation.
However, experts like Dr. Carlos Murillo of the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez (UACJ) warn that the term ‘encobijado’ is a description of a condition, not a cause of death. It is a label that risks obscuring the individual identities of the victims. As researcher Rossana Reguillo notes, this process contributes to the ‘dissolution of the person,’ transforming human beings into abstract objects-messages of terror designed to exert territorial control.
Beyond the Statistics
The paradox remains: a blanket, an object meant to provide warmth and protection, has been repurposed into a tool of finality. While the total number of homicides in Juárez has shown a downward trend in 2025 and 2026, the persistence of the ‘encobijados’ suggests that the nature of violence remains deeply entrenched. Each blanket-wrapped body is not just a statistic; it is a question that the map alone cannot answer.
Source: Norte Digital
