Mexico closed 2024 with 26,715 people murdered, according to preliminary figures from state prosecutors’ offices shown in the Government Security Report. The figure represents a slight increase in crime compared to the same period in 2023, with an average of about 70 murders per day. However, it is very likely that the number of homicides will increase when the figures from the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (SESNSP) are presented on January 20, and the number will exceed 80 murders per day.
Between January and November of last year, 39,631 homicide victims were recorded. Of these, 23,581 were intentional homicides and 16,050 were negligent, most of them committed with a firearm. On December 31, the country’s prosecutors counted 69 murders in the country and another 60 on January 1, with Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Michoacán and Veracruz leading the list as the states with the most violent deaths. In Culiacán, capital of Sinaloa, the year began with a lot of violence. At least five people were murdered, including a minor, and three other men were decapitated on the Culiacán – El Dorado highway.
May was the most violent month of 2024 with a total of 4,021 cases and Colima leads the list of the states with the most murders per 100,000 inhabitants with 103.10, above the national average which stands at 21.01. They are followed by Morelos (69.62), Baja California (53.91), Chihuahua (46.62), Guerrero (45.39), Guanajuato (43.92) and Sonora (43.03), among others. In addition to the violence in the States, there is the forced disappearance of more than 113,000 people, which makes it difficult to accurately count violent deaths in the country. The vast majority have disappeared since December 2006, the beginning of the war against drug trafficking during the administration of Felipe Calderón.
In 2025, the constitutional reform that endorses the super powers of the Secretariat of Public Security, headed by Omar García Harfuch, will come into force. Among these powers is the coordination of the National Intelligence System that will work together with the Attorney General’s Office and the National Guard. The first case of the year has not been long in coming.
Femicides
The figures for widespread violence in the country also affect the increase in violence against women. 733 women were victims of femicide between January and November, according to the SESNSP, although organizations in charge of studying this phenomenon, such as the National Citizen Observatory of Femicide (OCNF), consider that there is a large underreporting of cases and that the figures could be double. For example, only 25% of homicides of women were investigated in 2023 as femicide, out of a total of more than 3,000 murdered.
Claudia Sheinbaum’s government has shown a 12% reduction in femicide compared to the same period in 2023 in which 833 cases were recorded, however, murders of women have increased in 12 states. Despite the reductions shown by the government, in the last four years 15,158 women were violently murdered in Mexico. Nuevo Leon, State of Mexico and Mexico City are the three states with the highest number of homicides in the first 11 months of 2024, but there are many more. Baja California Sur, Nayarit, Aguascalientes, Coahuila, Baja California, Tabasco and Guerrero showed an increase in the investigation of this crime.
Source: elpais
