Mexican gov’t says homicides fell 3.6 pct. in 2021
Mexico City, Jan 20 (EFE).- A total of 33,308 intentional homicides were registered in Mexico in 2021, a drop of 3.6 percent compared to the 34,554 killings the previous year, the government said Thursday.
The number of murders in December 2021 (2,606), however, was nearly on a par with the 2,633 killings in the same month of 2020.
Since December 2018, when leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s six-year term began, there has been a 4 percent drop in intentional homicides, the head of the Security and Citizen Protection Secretariat (SSPC), Rosa Icela Rodriguez, said in a press conference at Mexico City’s National Palace.
“There’s a downward trend in intentional homicides, especially with the start of (efforts) to bolster security in several of the country’s states,” the official said.
Like in other periods, six of Mexico’s 32 federal entities accounted for 50 percent of all intentional homicides in 2021: the states of Guanajuato, Baja California, Michoacan, Mexico, Chihuahua and Jalisco.
The SSPC also said without providing specific figures that the number of femicides, intentional murders of women because of their gender, fell 7 percent in 2021 relative to 2020.
Figures released Thursday by the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System indicate there were 79 femicides in December 2021, down 7 percent from the 85 femicides in the same month of 2020.
It added that Mexico registered 1,004 femicides in 2021 and 978 femicides in 2020, an increase of 2.66 percent.
The SSPC also reported a 28.1 percent increase in rapes from 2020 to 2021, although Rodriguez said intra-family violence is down 17.3 percent since a record number of those crimes were filed in May 2021.
She also said kidnappings declined by 22.3 percent compared to 2020 and by 50 percent relative to 2019. The number of abductions in December 2021 was down 71.8 percent from January 2019, when a record number of 185 of those crimes were registered.
Organized-crime related offenses in 2021 were down 13.3 percent from 2020, while “crimes against health” (drug-related crimes) declined 11.1 percent year-over-year.
The SSPC, however, reported a 9.3 percent increase in 2021 in street robberies and a 12.6 percent rise in robberies targeting motorists and public transport vehicles.
May was the most violent month of 2021 with 2,997 intentional homicides, while March 2020 (3,041 killings) has been the month with the most intentional homicides since Lopez Obrador, popularly known as AMLO, took office.
AMLO’s first two years in office were the most violent on record in Mexico, with 34,960 intentional murders registered in 2019 and 34,554 in 2020. EFE
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