Mexico Witnesses Largest Number of Homicides in Last 20 Years

The Mexican investigative agencies reported on Monday that in the first three months of 2019, the country  witnessed 7,556 violent deaths, with an average of 78 per day.

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According to the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (SESNSP), the figure could surpass 8,500 as on a daily basis the death count rises approximately 20 percent.

After February, the Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador prepared for a "tactical-strategic" response by founding a group composed of the Secretary of Security, Defense, Navy, and the Attorney General's Office. They accounted for 4,652 victims between January and February, while the SESNSP reported 5,649 victims in the same period, differing from the official data by 997 victims.

According to daily statistics, intentional homicides rose 3.36% last month, a jump from 2,326 in February to 2,404 in March.

"The figures for March have already been released from the daily count”, which is “the highest recorded in the current administration,” said expert Ricardo Marquez Blas, who, according to his calculations, anticipates that the January-March 2019 period will be the most violent of the last 20 years.

"Now, with these figures, it is known that the incidence of intentional homicides is not being reduced or contained, which has been identified as a priority objective of the current government's security strategy," said the former head of the Information Unit for the Public Safety of the defunct National Security Commission (CNS).

Marquez Blas said that if one takes into account the daily reports that are delivered to the President have an underestimation of 20%, there is no certainty that the murders have gone down in Tijuana, which is considered a priority region, as Lopez Obrador announced.

After seeing these figures, "I would doubt very much that the violent deaths in Tijuana had decreased" he said.