Mexico is a beautiful place, but it has been ripped apart by violence from drug cartels. According to a recent study, May 2018 saw a record with 93 people murdered EACH DAY, most of it coming from cartel violence and making it the most violent month on record in Mexico’s history:
Ten days before the presidential elections in Mexico, the number of murders in the country reached a historic record with 2,890 intentional homicides last May, which means an average of 93 murders per day and four victims per hour , according to figures of the National Public Security System released this Thursday.
The official data place to May as the month with more homicides since 1997, year in which the data count began on the part of the federal authority. Until before that date, the most violent month had been March 2017 with 2,746 murders.
In the accumulated from January to May of 2018 there are 13,298 victims of intentional homicide , which represents an increase of 21% compared to murders registered in the same period of the year period. Violence has permeated equally in different parts of the country. The States with the highest incidence of homicides per 100,000 inhabitants are Colima, Baja California, Guerrero, Chihuahua and Guanajuato. Firearms are listed as the main homicidal instrument.
Although 2017 has positioned itself as the bloodiest year with 28,710 murders, the figure for the first five months of the year suggests that Mexico could break its own annual record in violence. Francisco Rivas, general director of the National Citizen Observatory , predicts that in the case of homicide and femicide, 2018 will culminate with an increase between 5.5% and 15% over the previous year.
In the breakdown of the criminal figures, the increase in femicides is also reported. From January to May of this year there have been 328 homicides against women in the country, which represents an increase of 13% compared to the same period last year when 288 cases were counted.
The director of this civil organization explains that this escalation of murders throughout the country is the result of a lack of measures for three years when the rise of homicides began. “There is a series of illicit businesses that continues to prosper, a lack of forceful actions and a serious lack of State, a crime that is not sanctioned is a crime that is sanctioned to grow.”
In the face of upcoming votes, Rivas has warned that the next president will have to prioritize measures to contain violence to stop these bloody statistics. However, the clarity of the contenders’ proposals is lacking. “We do not see, at least in the leading candidate [Andrés Manuel López Obrador] clarity in a security proposal, it is an extremely naive and contradictory proposal that does not suggest that it will improve security conditions,” he says. (source)
This is the state of Mexico today, a nation where the average income is around $4,000 USD, but a hitman for a drug cartel earns $15,000 USD for each head he cuts off at the order of a drug boss.
As Ted noted in his 2016 documentary, it truly is Hell Across the Border for many people, and there is a reason so many want to escape to the USA.
Never take for granted the good things we have and to safeguard them, and also remember to understand, appreciate, and help our fellow man who suffers from such plight as do so many in Mexico at the hands of those who want to revive the ancient ways of the Aztecs.