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About 719 murders have been registered in the first 100 days since Hector Astudillo Flores took over as governor of the troubled Mexican state of Guerrero, according to official reports, equalling an average of more than seven executions a day.
In January of this year alone, the Ministry of Public Security reported a bloodbath of 217 homicides: 79 more than in the same period in 2015, before Astudillo, a member of President Enrique Peña Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, began his administration.
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Despite the chaos and serious crime ruling many parts of the state where the 43 Ayotzinapa students were kidnapped in 2014, Astudillo remarked that his governorship so far has been “normal.”
The governor, who took the position Oct. 27 last year, said that socio-political conflicts and protests provoked by the disappearance and likely murder of the teaching students from the Ayotzinapa college have died down.
The statement came even though he recognized that the serious problem of insecurity and violence persists, unabated by police and military operations in the region.
In November last year, official figures state that 239 murders were reported in Guerrero, 123 of which were committed with a firearm.
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The following month there were 260 murders, just under half of which involved a gun, and in January, 217 assassinations, 61 of which were in the tourist area of Acapulco.
The average of 719 murders in the first three months of the administration of Astudillo equates to seven executions a day, concentrated in a region with the highest number of troops and state police officers to curb the gruesome drug violence.
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