Homicides in Mexico fall 9.1 pct. in 1st half of 2022

By Pedro Pablo Cortes

Mexico City, Jul 20 (EFE).- Intentional homicides in Mexico fell to 15,400 in the first half of 2022, down 9.1 percent from the 16,948 homicides reported over the same six-month period of last year, the government said Wednesday.

Security and Citizen Protection Secretary Rosa Icela Rodriguez put the number of homicides in June at 2,662, virtually unchanged from the same month of 2021 but 5.8 percent lower than in May (2,826), the most violent month thus far in 2022.

“The downward trend in intentional homicides continued in June with a drop of 13.4 percent from its record high in 2018. It’s the lowest (figure for) June in five years,” Rodriguez said at President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s regular morning press conference at Mexico City’s National Palace.

Mexico has had a daily average of 84 intentional homicides in 2022, down from 94 per day in the first half of last year, the secretary said.

The official said homicides in the first three and a half years of Lopez Obrador’s six-year term were down 9.1 percent from the same period of predecessor Enrique Peña Nieto’s “sexenio.”

Six of Mexico’s 32 states accounted for 7,505 homicides between January and June, or 49 percent of the national total: Guanajuato, Michoacan, Baja California, Mexico, Jalisco and Chihuahua.

A total of 6,035 homicides were registered in Mexico’s 50 priority municipalities (categorized as such because of their high levels of violent crime), down 14.5 percent from January to June 2021, Rodriguez said.

Gender-related killings, or femicides, fell 8.02 percent to 493 for the six-month period, the secretary said, adding that the total for June was 79, around a 5 percent drop.

“In the case of femicides, they also were down 20 percent from our record high of (112 in August of) 2021. We’re continuing to work to prevent (those crimes) and also on sanctions for femicides,” Rodriguez said.

In terms of kidnappings, the government said the number of victims fell from 63 in June 2021 to 50 last month.

The secretary reported annual drops of 21 percent in crimes against health (related to drug trafficking), 19.9 percent in tax crimes and 12.8 percent in financial crimes.

She acknowledged increases of 1.3 percent in crimes against bodily integrity, 3.3 percent in crimes involving firearms and 7.7 percent in patrimonial crimes (theft, extortion, fraud).

Even so, Rodriguez said federal crimes have fallen by 25.1 percent since Lopez Obrador took office in December 2018.

“It bears mentioning that robberies were down 29.4 percent in June compared to the historical (high) in 2017,” she added.

Intentional homicides in Mexico fell to 33,315 in 2021, a drop that followed the two most violent years in Mexican history in 2019 (34,690 murder victims) and 2020 (34,554).

The government’s violent crime report was released a day after a quarterly survey by the Inegi national statistics institute showed that 67.4 percent of Mexicans felt unsafe in the city where they live in June, up from 66.2 percent in March.

Even so, the security and citizen protection secretary said the figures she presented on Wednesday show the country is headed in the right direction.

“We now have a path forward, which is the national security strategy. We have a methodology, which is coordination with intelligence and concrete actions to accurately target criminal structures. And we have results, a downward trend in crime rates,” she said. EFE

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