MATAMOROS, Mexico (AP) — The sidewalks are empty on Alvaro Obregon Avenue. Restaurants and souvenir shops lining the once popular thoroughfare are gutted and shuttered. The sign in front of an abandoned karaoke bar is now ripped and dilapidated, riddled underneath with three spray-painted tombstones.

The thousands of spring breakers who flooded over each March from the nearby Texas resorts are gone. The drug war drove them off, leaving a void of tourism in a city that years ago gave up trying to cater to such crowds.