More than 80 percent of the top 50 most violent cities in the world are located in Latin America, according to the Citizen Council for Public, Security, Justice, and Peace, a Mexican think-tank that tracks worldwide crime statistics.
The most violent cities ranking is based on 2013 homicide rates, revealed a Spanish-language report by the think-tank.
In 37th place, Ciudad Juarez in Mexico located across El Paso, Texas ranked lower than three U.S. cities on the top 50 list. In other words, the U.S. cities of Detroit, New Orleans, and Baltimore were deadlier than Juarez in 2013. Juarez was ranked the most violent city on earth for three consecutive years in 2008, 2009, and 2010.
Of the top 50 most deadly cities in 2013, 41 are located in Latin American and 4 in the U.S.
That means that 46 of the most violent cities in the world are found in the Americas once Puerto Príncipe, Haiti is added in. Three of the remaining four cities are located in South Africa and the other one is in Jamaica.
The 4 U.S. places that made the top most deadly cities on earth include:
Detroit (ranked 24th) with a murder rate of 47 people per 100,000 inhabitants;
New Orleans (26th) with 45 murders per 100,000 inhabitants;
Baltimore (36th) with 38 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants; and
St. Louis (45th) with 34 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.
The Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez is now ranked 37th with a murder rate of 38 per 100,000 inhabitants. So, three U.S. cities ranked higher than Ciudad Juarez on the list of the top 50 most violent cities in the world.
The top three most deadly cities in 2013 are:
San Pedro Sula, Honduras (187 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants);
Caracas, Venezuela (134 per 100,000); and
Acapulco, Mexico (113 per 100,000).
In 2013, San Pedro Sula, Honduras became the most violent city in the world for the third consecutive year.
Brazil is the country with the most violent cities listed (16) followed by Mexico (9), Colombia (6), Venezuela (5), and the U.S. (4).
The Latin American countries with the most violence-related problems are Honduras, Venezuela, Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, and Brazil, according to the Mexican think-tank.
In the think-tank’s report, the governments of Venezuela and Mexico were accused of falsifying homicide figures, which proved to be a major obstacle to the 2013 most violent cities ranking.
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