Despite debate about ranking, Mexico deaths continue to escalate

There’s no way around it.  Mexico’s violence is worsening.  No matter how you slice and dice the statistics, that conclusion is unavoidable.

1. According to statistics of the Mexican government itself, murders in Mexico increased in 2016.See Mexico’s Murder Rate Rose in 2016.
2. The consulting firm Verisk Maplecroft compiled a Crime Rate Index for calendar year 2016, and ranked Mexico as the third most dangerous country in the world.See UK-Based Firm ranks Mexico as World’s Third Most Dangerous Country.
3. A Mexican NGO called theConsejo Ciudadano para la Seguridad Pública y Justicia Penal, A.C.(Citizen Council for Public Security and Penal Justice), released a list of the 50 world cities with the highest homicide rates in 2016. Mexico has eight cities on the list (while the U.S. has four).  See Eight Mexican, and Four U.S., Cities on World’s Most Murderous List.
4. In its Armed Conflict Survey 2017, London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) listedthe Mexican Drug War as the world’s second-deadliest conflict, after the Syrian Civil War. So, when you classify Mexico as a war zone it stacks up comparably in quantity of deaths with the current civil wars in the Middle East, only being surpassed by Syria.  See Mexico and its Rank as the World’s Second-deadliest Conflict.

U.S. President Donald Trump heard about that one and tweeted, “Mexico was just ranked the second deadliest country in the world…,” which was not exactly what the IISS said, rather that the Mexican Drug War was the world’s second-deadliest conflict.

(ILLUSTRATION: KVIA)

The next day, IISS announced that the second-place position might be in doubt, that “… there was a methodological flaw in our calculation of estimated conflict fatalities that requires revision. Our researchers are working to rectify this and we will share the results in due course. We anticipate this will result in Mexico’s conflict remaining among the ten most lethal in the world, by estimated fatalities attributable to an armed conflict.”

In other words, even if Mexico is not #2 on the IISS list, it’s likely to be in the Top Ten.

Of course, all these stats deal with Mexico in 2016.  But more recent stats show things are getting worse in 2017.

In June of 2017, according to government statistics, there were 2,186 murders reported in the month of May 2017, which was a twenty-year high.

The very next month, June of 2017, even that high was topped as there were 2,234 homicides from that month under investigation.

An article by Kate Linthicum appeared in the Los Angeles Times on July 22nd, 2017, entitled Mexico’s bloody drug war is killing more people than ever.  This article painted a grim picture of how bad the violence is getting in Mexico.

It reports:

• The first half of 2017, with “12,144 homicide cases,” was “the deadliest first half of a year” since relevant records began to be kept in 1997.
• The most violent Mexican state, by quantity of murders, is Guerrero, with 1,161 murder cases since January of 2017.
• In comparison to last year, 27 of Mexico’s 32 states saw increases in homicides.
• The violence has even been inching closer to tourist zones.This could be disastrous for Mexico’s tourist industry. (The country is the ninth most popular tourist destination in the world.)

To what factors does author Kate Linthicum attribute this disastrous situation?  Here are two big ones:

• “Rising demand for heroin in the United States,” which puts more money (and thus more power) in the hands of drug cartel leaders.According to Linthicum, “In recent years, Mexico has surpassed Colombia to become the largest supplier of heroin to the U.S.  Security analysts say the opioid epidemic in the U.S. has left cartels flush with cash, which has allowed them to step up the warfare.”
• The famed drug cartel boss Joaquin “el Chapo” Guzman was arrested and extradited to the United States.The capture of such a high-profile individual as Guzman is a victory, but one result may be to unleash more violence.  Linthicum reports that “Guzman’s sons have been fighting another clique for control of the powerful Sinaloa cartel since his arrest last year. The cartel’s instability has allowed other criminal groups, including the Jalisco New Generation cartel, to move in, driving violence in Mexico’s northwest.”

The violence in Mexico is increasing.

By Allan Wall for TYT

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Allan Wall, an educator, resided in Mexico for many years.  His website is located at http://www.allanwall.info