JUAREZ, Mexico—Drug violence is spiking again in the Mexican border city of Juarez.  Several of the recent murder victims are U.S. citizens. 

“Sometimes when we cross the border there are like heads, like the heads of people right there,” El Paso teen Ruth Duran said.

At least 60 percent of the murder victims in Juarez are under the age of 25.  Some are children.

Pricilla Ibarra Alfaro was 11 years old when she died in a hail of bullets in Juarez.  She was a U.S. citizen, visiting her mother and sister in Mexico.

Pricilla lived with her uncle on the Texas side of the border.  She had just started her summer vacation and planned to work at the family bakery.

In May, it was a 15-year-old El Paso girl who was killed in Mexico.

That teen, a popular high school student and baseball player, was hit by a stray bullet while at a family party in Juarez.

While some of the young people are caught in the crossfire, others are caught up in the cartels’ turf war as foot soldiers.

Juarez’s youthful labor force and proximity to the U.S. made it a border boom town, but those same factors have been exploited by drug traffickers trying to grow their business.

Teresa Almada says drug cartels easily recruit youngsters.  She works with at-risk youth in some of Juarez’s poorest and roughest neighborhoods.

Those areas are fertile ground for cartels looking to hire and train young smugglers and hitmen.

Almada criticizes the Mexican government’s lack of educational opportunities and programs for youth.

Instead, she says young people are treated as a problem to be dealt with by police and soldiers.

Eric Ponce has experienced the reality of street life.  He was a gang member, a drug user and a dropout.

But Ponce is one of Almada’s success stories.  While he once might have been seen as part of the border’s lost generation, he’s now enrolled in college and volunteers at the youth center.

He uses hip-hop to help other young people find a positive creative outlet.

Ponce says he worries about the lack of role models for kids.

Instead, he says many kids dream of becoming the big narco – or gangster – with deadly consequences.