2017 might be the most violent year in Mexican history, one NGO claims. Semáforo Delictivo said that, due to the 24,000 homicides between January and September, the year is proving even worse than 2011, when President Felipe Calderón’s war on drugs led to 22,000 homicides.
President of the organization, Santiago Roel, said that 73 percent of murders committed in the first eight months of the year were related to organized crime. He said that in 2007, there were 2,828 executions. Now, a decade later, 18,017 have been reported.
All high-impact crimes have increased during the current year, including abductions, homicides and grand theft auto at gunpoint. According to Roel, the main cause of violence and corruption is the “Mérida Plan,” which focuses on eradicating drug cartels.
Roel said drug regulation is the only strategy for dealing with Mexico’s violence problem, especially in the drug-producing states of Sinaloa and Guerrero. The legalization of narcotics could lead to prosperity for rural workers.
“Politicians will remain in their complicit and comfortable silence,” Roel said about the possibility of seeing such drug policy come about. He said he believes the Merida Plan should come to an end and the military’s approach to fighting drugs must be reevaluated.
According to the Mexican Association of Insurance Institutions, violent car robberies are at their highest point in the country’s history. Between October 2016 and September 2017, 85,943 insured cars have been stolen. Sixty percent of the robberies were violent.
Califica Semáforo Delictivo al 2017 como el peor año en inseguridad en el país pic.twitter.com/64AsbqNKZt
— Marco A.Tlatelpa (@LicMarcoATR) October 24, 2017
Recaredo Arias, the association’s Director General, said that elements of organized crime have been identified in these cases, and that more urgent measures are needed to combat the problem.
The states of Guerrero, Sinaloa, Mexico City, Tlaxcala, Puebla, Michoacán, Zacatecas, Morelos, Tabasco and Tamaulipas, have the highest numbers of violent car thefts, he said.
Sources: El Universal, Forbes México, Milenio
