The home of Frida Khalo and Diego Rivera has become a killing field.
How many murders does Mexico have a year?
Mexico homicide rate
Despite recent improvements, Mexico’s homicide rate remains near historical highs, at 26.6 deaths per 100,000 people, resulting in over 34,000 victims. This equates to 94 homicides per day on average in 2021. This daily figure is now 96 in 2022.
Background
In the 1980s, Mexico’s crime groups and drug traffickers became organized, assigning distinct regional areas of control for each group and establishing networks and trafficking routes. However, as production and distribution increased, the groups began fighting for territorial control and access to markets, leading to an increase in violence across Mexico.
The Mexican government officially declared war on criminal organizations in 2006, when former President Felipe Calderon launched an initiative to combat cartels using military force. In 2012, President Enrique Peña Nieto revised the Calderon government’s strategy, shifting efforts away from violent exchanges and toward improving law enforcement capacity and supporting public safety.
However, after the Sinaloa Cartel’s Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was arrested in 2014, re-arrested in 2016, and finally extradited to the United States in 2017, a power vacuum was created within the Sinaloa Cartel, resulting in an accompanying increase in violence between rival factions seeking new territory and influence. Moreover, despite an initial decrease in homicides following Peña Nieto’s reforms, Mexico continued to struggle with corruption and crime-related violence. By 2016, drug-related homicides had increased by 22 percent, with more than twenty thousand killed, and in 2017 a mass grave containing the remains of more than 250 victims of crime-related violence was uncovered in Veracruz State. Since 2006, crime-related violence has resulted in an estimated 150,000 deaths.
Recognizing widespread assertions that the use of military force has only increased the level of crime-related violence in Mexico—and accusations that the military has committed human rights abuses and carried out extrajudicial killings—then–presidential candidate AMLO promised on his campaign trail to revolutionize the fight against cartels and revert to a civilian-led police force.
Concerns
In 2007, the George W. Bush administration and Calderon government launched the Merida Initiative to improve U.S.-Mexico cooperation on security and rule of law issues in Mexico, and support for the initiative has continued under the Donald J. Trump administration. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, Mexican cartels represent the greatest drug-related threat, supplying heroin, marijuana, methamphetamines, and other drugs, to the United States. Criminal and drug trafficking organizations threaten to undermine the strength and legitimacy of the Mexican government, an important U.S. regional partner, as well as harm civilian populations in both countries.
Recent Developments
Mexican law enforcement and the military have struggled to curb crime-related violence. In 2018, the number of drug-related homicides in Mexico rose to 33,341, a 15 percent increase from the previous year—and a record high. Moreover, Mexican cartels killed at least 130 candidates and politicians in the lead-up to Mexico’s 2018 presidential elections.
While on the campaign trail, then-candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (often referred to as AMLO) proposed several strategies to combat crime-related violence. After winning the election and assuming office in December 2018, AMLO announced the creation of a new National Guard (a hybrid civilian police and military force) to fight cartels.
Yet another tragedy
Two Texas sisters and their friend have not been heard from for about two weeks after going missing in Mexico.
Mystery surrounds what has happened to the trio who crossed the border on Friday 24 February to sell clothes at a flea market.
Maritza Trinidad Perez Rios, 47; Marina Perez Rios, 48; and Dora Alicia Cervantes Saenz, 53, were travelling in a green mid-1990s Chevy Silverado to the city of Montemorelos, in Nuevo Leon state.
Montemorelos is about three hours drive from where the sisters are from in Penitas, a small border city in Texas near McAllen.
Texas officials have advised Americans not to travel to Mexico at all during the spring break holidays and beyond because the country is deemed “too dangerous”.
The husband of one of the missing women spoke to her on the phone while she was travelling in Mexico but became concerned when he couldn’t reach her later, according to Penitas police chief Roel Bermea.
The senior officer added: “Since he couldn’t make contact over that weekend, he came in that Monday and reported it to us.”
It comes as four Americans were kidnapped by gunmen last week during a road trip to Matamoros, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.
Two people in the group were found dead while the pair who survived have now returned to the US.
The four childhood friends from North Carolina had driven to Mexico because one woman in the group had wanted a cosmetic procedure known as a tummy tuck from a Matamoros doctor, according to a relative.
Soon after reaching Mexico, they were caught in the crossfire between two groups of rival drug cartels.
Tamaulipas is one of six Mexican states which are on the US state department’s ‘do not travel’ list. The others being Sinaloa, Zacatecas, Colima, Guerrero, and Michoacan.
Meanwhile, it is currently spring break season where US college students will be on holiday, including in Mexico. They and other visitors to the country are being advised to continue exercising extreme caution.
‘Significant safety threat’
The Texas department of public safety (DPS) has gone as far as urging Texans to avoid travelling to Mexico altogether during spring break, and beyond, due to the ongoing violence.
“Drug cartel violence and other criminal activity represent a significant safety threat to anyone who crosses into Mexico right now,” said DPS director Steven McCraw.
“We have a duty to inform the public about safety, travel risks and threats. Based on the volatile nature of cartel activity and the violence we are seeing there; we are urging individuals to avoid travel to Mexico at this time.”
There was widespread publicity over the kidnapping case, but the fate of the sisters and their friend has garnered relatively little attention.
The FBI has said it is aware the trio have gone missing. The bureau added it “relentlessly pursues all options when it comes to protecting the American people, and this doesn’t change when they are endangered across the border”.
The women’s families are in contact with Mexican police who are investigating the disappearance of their loved ones.
You have been warned!
Penny Lane
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