MEMORIAL FOR UTEP STUDENTS KILLED IN JUAREZ SHEDS LIGHT ON SAFETY

UTEP students clung to one another and wept outside the Business
Administration building Monday as they mourned the deaths of two
students who were killed in Juarez last week.

The students, Manuel Acosta Villalobos, 22, and Eder Diaz Otero, 23,
were attacked by gunmen outside Diaz's house in colonia Rincones de
Santa Rita about 8 p.m. Nov. 2. Their assailants fired 36 rounds,
hitting the men multiple times, according to a Chihuahua state police
report.

The memorial service for Acosta and Diaz took place between UTEP's
Business Administration building

Number of Mexican international students at UTEP and the library at 2
p.m. About 400 people gathered around a podium and listened as the
slain men's parents spoke to the crowd about the joy their sons
brought to their lives. Both men were undergraduate students at the
University of Texas at El Paso's College of Business Administration.
Acosta was to graduate in the spring and Diaz had just transferred to
UTEP from El Paso Community College. Both attended an operations
management class at UTEP only an hour before they were shot and killed
in Juarez, said Bob Nachtmann, the business college's dean.

Ivan Herrera, a 23-year-old UTEP student, spoke to the crowd about his
friendship with both men. Herrera said he was close to Acosta and Diaz
and familiar with the dangerous trek they often took between UTEP and
their homes in Juarez.

Herrera said he also lives in Juarez and commutes to
UTEP.

About 6.4 percent of the more than 22,000 students who attend UTEP are
Mexican international students, according to university officials.
Richard Adauto, UTEP's executive vice president, said the majority of
those students live in Juarez, which means more than 1,400 students
cross the border on a daily basis -- a number that has dropped from
more than 1,800 in 2003, according to UTEP's Center for Institutional
Evaluation Research and Planning

But Adauto said the decline in the number of Mexican international
students attending the university cannot be attributed to the drug
war.

"We certainly are not getting that kind of anecdotal evidence. ... We
basically have leveled off in terms of Mexican students. At this point
our numbers did not change from last year," he said.

Herrera said the death of his friends has prompted him to be more
cautious about returning to Juarez after attending night classes. He
said he has not had a violent encounter with criminals, but he is prepared.

"After what happened to my friends, I'm on the lookout for anything,"
Herrera said.

During an interview on Monday, Acosta's father, also named Manuel
Acosta, pleaded for UTEP to find a solution for those students who
travel back and forth from Juarez for their education. Crossing the
border every day is dangerous for them, he said.

"I believe there is some way that UTEP can help during these very
difficult times that we are living in," he said.

Adauto said the safety of those students is a major concern for the
university's administration. Many of these students must return to
Mexico after dark.

"We will try to do what we can to accommodate that situation but we
don't have a whole lot of beds on the campus ... in fact, we have a
wait list so that makes it difficult for us to provide a room on an
impromptu basis, but it's something that we may look at as we progress
here," he said.

More than 6,800 people have been killed in Juarez since drug cartels
began battling for key drug-smuggling corridors along the border in
2008. Chihuahua state officials said more than 2,500 were killed there
so far this year. Three were UTEP students.

Two of those students, Acosta and Diaz, will now have trees planted on
campus in their honor "as a symbol for each of their lives," Nachtmann
said.

The family of Diaz celebrated a Mass for him 5 p.m. Monday at St.
Patrick Cathedral in El Paso. Diaz was cremated.

Acosta will also be cremated, his father said. His body was brought
over the border into El Paso on Monday. Authorities had originally
said Acosta was 25 years old, but his father said he was 22.