The Mexican government reported that there were 31,532 homicides in the country between January and November of 2013 including 16,736 labeled as “intentional” murder and 14,796 as “negligent” manslaughter. Those figures along with other national crime statistics were released by the Mexican government’s Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (SESNSP) on Dec. 17.
On Dec. 17, Mexico’s Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (SESNSP) updated the country’s national crime statistics thru November 2013.
According to Molly Molloy, a border expert at the New Mexico State University Library who tracks drug war-related violence in Mexico, Mexico is deadlier than Iraq.
“Many more people (in raw numbers) die violently in Mexico than in Iraq. And when population is taken into account, Mexico’s homicide death toll still exceeds that of Iraq–a country barely emerging from foreign invasions and civil war,” Molloy told Breitbart News via email.
“Iraq has about 35 million people, while Mexico’s population approaches 118 million,” she continued. “Recent reports from the United Nations and other international organizations indicate that violent deaths in Iraq this year have surpassed 8,000.”
“A comparable rate of violence in Mexico would produce about 27,000 murders” further said Molloy.
She went on to compare the 27,000 murder figure against the total 31,532 homicides that have taken place in Mexico so far this year.
Over half (8,677) of the 16,736 intentional murders in 2013 have been carried out with firearms.
The 16,736 intentional homicides mark an estimated 16 percent decrease from the 20,010 that occurred during the same period last year. Negligent homicides have gone up by 29.
The overall number of homicides in 2013 went down by about 9 percent when compared to the 34,777 that took place during the first 11 months of 2012.
The Mexican state of Chihuahua, which shares the southwest border with Texas and New Mexico on the U.S. side, was among the regions with the highest number of intentional murders so far this year with 1,336.
Due to a lack of transparency by the Mexican government, it is difficult to discern between cartel-induced murders and those that are not, according to the New Mexico State University expert.
“Basically I don’t separate cartel-related killings from other murders because there’s not enough openness from the Mexican govt to be able to do that with any validity,” she said.
Molloy pointed out that the Mexican government under reports the homicide figures.
“The numbers reported each month by the [Mexican government] are actually a count of…preliminary investigations opened by police and prosecutors in hundreds of jurisdictions around the country and reported by the states to the federal agency,” she told Breitbart News. “In other words, the numbers refer to crimes under police investigation, not actual numbers of victims. Many crimes have multiple victims and officials admit they don’t know how the numbers of crimes reported translate into a number of murder victims.”
According to the official figures released by the Mexican government, at least 50 people were intentionally murdered per day in 2013 as of the end of November.
However, Molloy believes that number could be as high as 100.
Peña Nieto, who was sworn in as Mexico’s president on December 1, 2012, has failed to bring about the peace that he promised, according to the cartel violence expert.
“Casualty figures during his first year indicate that the country is as violent as ever–at least 50 and possibly as many as 100 people per day are murdered,” pointed out Molloy.
“Like Calderon before him, Peña Nieto (with the endorsement and support of the U.S. government) continues to wage a ‘war on drugs’ that kills an average of 1,500 people each month in Mexico,” she added. “Despite a cumulative death toll since 2006 of at least 150,000, neither the Mexicans nor the Americans provide any evidence that the drug supply has been diminished.”
According to the official figures by the Mexican government, there have been about 122,500 intentional murders since December 2006 when Calderon assumed the Mexican presidency and started a war against the drug cartels in the country.
While the number of murders in 2013 have decreased in Mexico when compared to those in 2012, the number of kidnappings rose by over 20 percent. Extortion incidents went up by almost 10 percent.
There were 1,583 kidnappings in Mexico between January and November of this year compared to 1,228 during the same period in 2012. Meanwhile, there have been 7,441 extortions in 2013, an increase from the 6,873 in 2012.
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