(QCOSTARICA) Although due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the country is under vehicle restrictions, social distancing, and stay at home measures, murderers circumvented all the controls in the last 2 weeks resulting in a total of 32 homicides.
This according to the statistics of the Oeganismo de Investigacion Judicial (OIJ) that indicate an average of 2 murders per day between April 20 and May 6, 2020.
On April 20, the homicide figure was 159, while as of May 6, the number of murders reached 191 cases.
These include cases ranging from a femicide in the Southern Zone, a couple who appeared burned in Atenas, and two men executed in front of a boy who was the son of one of the victims in Matina.
It should be noted that the figure may include death that had not been determined as homicides but are under investigation, for the time being, as such.
Taking stock of the behavior of homicides in the first 4 months of 2020, the director of the OIJ, Walter Espinoza, acknowledged that a striking increase had been reported.
Why? As said before, as of April 20 this year, there were 159 homicides, while at the same date in 2019 the figure was 167; 8 fewer.
And although the figure for this year to May 6 is only 4 cases more than on the same date in 2019, OIJ authorities expected a drop this year over last due because of sanitary measures adopted to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
The police chief was surprised, because in theory, given the social distancing and the high police presence in the streets, there are a high number of cases that cause concern.
“There is an increase despite the emergency decree, we expected a drop given that the bars and clubs are closed, and less contact, yet there is a striking increase. We are going to analyze this.
“The level of violence in the country is important, it is striking … It reflects that more preventive work must be done, more firearms must be removed …”, Espinoza said.
