Mexico had another violent month in October with almost 2,500 homicides, preliminary data shows.

The federal government counted a total of 2,481 murders in the 31 daily homicide reports it published last month. The figure is this year’s highest monthly total derived from adding the daily homicide counts, indicating that October could go down as the most violent month of 2022.

Data published by the National Public Security System (SNSP) typically shows that there were more homicides than those recorded in the government’s daily reports in any given month.

Based on SNSP data, May was the most violent month so far this year with over 2,800 homicides. The sum of the daily counts that month was 2,472, while the final SNSP total was about 15% higher. The SNSP will publish final homicide data for October in the second half of November.

The government’s preliminary total of 2,481 homicides yields an average of just over 80 murders per day last month. Among the worst incidents of violence in October was a massacre of 20 people in the Guerrero town of San Miguel Totolapan and the murder of 12 people in a bar in Irapuato, Guanajuato.

The violence continued on Monday with 92 homicides across the country, according to the government’s final daily report for October. Tamaulipas recorded the highest number of murders among the 32 federal entities with 12 victims, followed by Michoacán with nine and Baja California with eight.

SNSP data shows that Mexico is on track to record more than 30,000 homicides for a fifth consecutive year in 2022, despite an 8.1% reduction in murders in the first nine months of the year. There were 23,351 homicides between January and September, with almost half that number occurring in just six states: Guanajuato (Mexico’s most violent state in recent years), Baja California, México state, Michoacán, Jalisco and Chihuahua.

Almost seven in 10 homicides in the same period occurred in just 10 states – the six listed above as well as Sonora, Guerrero, Nuevo León and Zacatecas.

On a per capita basis, Colima was the most violent state in the first nine months of the year with 304 homicides per 100,000 residents. Baja California, which includes the violent border city of Tijuana, ranked second followed by Chihuahua, Zacatecas and Morelos.

With reports from Animal Político, Noticieros Televisa and Expansión