CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – The mother of four raised a finger, pointing out abandoned and stripped concrete homes and counting how many families on her street alone have fled the Western Hemisphere’s deadliest city.

“One, two, three, four, here, and two more back there on the next block,” said Laura Longoria.

Additional Photos

Graffiti cover a wall in the shell of a home in a nearly abandoned working-class neighborhood in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, which is among the deadliest places on Earth. The Associated Press

The 36-year-old ran a convenience store in her working-class neighborhood in south Juarez until the owners closed shop, fed up with the tribute they were forced to pay to drug gangsters to stay in business.

Her family vowed to stick it out. But then came the kidnapping of a teen from a stationery shop across the street. After that, Longoria’s husband, Enrique Mondragon, requested a transfer from the bus company where he works.

“They asked, ‘Where to?’” he recalled. “I said, ‘Anywhere.’“

No one knows how many residents have left the city of 1.4 million since a turf battle over border drug corridors unleashed an unprecedented wave of cartel murders and mayhem. Business leaders, citing government tax information, say the exodus could number 110,000, while a municipal group and local university say it’s closer to 230,000. Estimates by social organizations are even higher.

The tally is especially hard to track because Juarez is by nature transitory, attracting thousands of workers to high-turnover jobs in manufacturing, or who use the city across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, as a way station before they slip north illegally.

But its toll is everywhere you look. Barely a week goes by when Longoria and her husband don’t watch a neighbor move away. Then the vandals arrive, carrying off window panes, pipes, even light fixtures, until there’s nothing but a graffiti-covered shell, surrounded by yards strewn with rotting food or shredded tires. That could be what’s in store for Longoria’s three-room home of poured concrete if her husband’s transfer comes through.

Long controlled by the Juarez Cartel, the city descended into a horrifying cycle of violence after Mexico’s most-wanted kingpin, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, and his Sinaloa Cartel tried to shoot their way to power here beginning in 2008. President Felipe Calderon sent nearly 10,000 troops to restore order. Now, the Mexican army and federal authorities are going door-to-door, conducting an emergency census to determine just how many residents have fled.

Many people, however, refuse to answer their questions for fear authorities are simply collecting information about neighborhoods so they can begin extorting residents — just like the drug gangs. “Soon,” Longoria said, “there won’t be many people left to count.”

While many Juarez residents seek out more peaceful points in Mexico, others have streamed across the border into El Paso, population 740,000, where apartment vacancies are down and requests for new utility services in recently purchased or rented houses have spiked, said Mayor John Cook.

Massacres, beheadings, YouTube videos featuring cartel torture sessions and even car bombs are becoming commonplace in Juarez, where more than 3,000 people were killed in 2010, according to the federal government, making it among the most dangerous places on Earth.

El Paso, by contrast, has had three violent deaths — and one was a murder-suicide.

Juarez Chamber of Commerce President Daniel Murguia said at least 6,000 businesses have closed so far this year, according to Mexican Interior Ministry figures. There is no data available on those shuttered amid last year’s and 2008 violence, however, or on scores of businesses targeted by arsonists.

Kathy Dodson, El Paso’s economic director, said the number of fees paid for new city business permits there has not increased dramatically, but Jose Luis Mauricio, president of a group for new Mexican business owners in El Paso known as “La Red,” or The Net, said membership has grown from nine in February to about 280 today.

“Maybe it’s a bit sad for Juarez, but these are business owners who are moving here because they have no choice,” said Mauricio, who leads weekly breakfasts for Mexican expatriates looking to set up businesses in El Paso.

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