Homicides declined 3.9% in the first 10 months of 2021 compared to the same period of last year, Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez reported Monday.
There were 2,714 homicides in October, lifting the accumulated total for 2021 to 28,101. Murders last month declined 2.2% compared to September and 8.2% compared to October last year.
Guanajuato was once again the most violent state in the country last month in terms of total victims, recording 295 homicides.
Michoacán ranked second with 258 followed by México state, Baja California and Jalisco, with 246, 205 and 173 murders, respectively.
Baja California Sur, which was plagued by violent crime up until just a few years ago, didn’t record a single homicide in October, while there was just one in Yucatán, four in Campeche and seven in Coahuila.
On a per capita basis, Zacatecas was the most violent state last month with 8.4 homicides per 100,000 people. The northern state has also been plagued by violence this month.
Morelos, Baja California, Michoacán and Sonora were the second to fifth most violent states on a per capital basis. Each recorded between five and six homicides per 100,000 people.
Rodríguez told President López Obrador’s regular news conference that 50% of homicides this year occurred in just six states: Guanajuato, Michoacán, Baja California, México state, Jalisco and Chihuahua.
She said homicides in the 50 municipalities identified as Mexico’s most violent, across which the federal government bolstered security efforts in late July, recorded a 2.2% decline in homicides between August and October compared to the same period of 2020. Murders went down in 26 municipalities, up in 22 and remained steady in two.
Tijuana remains the most violent city in the country followed by Ciudad Juárez, León, Cajeme (Ciudad Obregón) and Fresnillo.
The security minister also reported that femicides – the murder of women and girls on account of their gender – declined 14.8% in October compared to the same month of last year. There were 69 femicides last month, the second lowest monthly total since the federal government took office in December 2018.
There were 842 femicides in the first 10 months of the year, 133 fewer than in all of 2020, which was the worst year on record for the crime. Mexico is currently on track to record more than 1,000 femicides in a year for the first time ever.
Rodríguez also presented data for a range of other crimes.
Among those that decreased in the first 10 months of the year compared to the same period of 2020 were financial crimes, tax crimes, organized crime offenses, drug trafficking, firearms offenses, cattle theft, business robberies, vehicle theft and burglaries.
Among those that increased were human trafficking, electoral offenses, crimes committed by public officials, theft on public transit, muggings, carjackings, extortion and rape.
Mexico News Daily
