CDMX | Violence in Mexico continues unstoppable as 17 of the 50 most violent cities in the world in 2022 are found within this ranking and seven occupy from first to eighth place, published by Publimetro and places Cancun as number 29 of this list.
In the list revealed by the Citizen Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice, it reveals that the Mexican Republic remains as the world epicenter of urban violence, according to the “2022 Ranking of the 50 Most Violent Cities in the World”.
Thus, for the sixth consecutive year, a Mexican city is the most dangerous in the world. This time, Colima took first place as the most violent city in the world in 2022, with a rate of 181.94 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.
Closely followed by Zamora, Michoacán, with 177.73%; Ciudad Obregón with a rate of 138.23 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants and Zacatecas with 134.62%.
In the top 10 of the most violent cities, New Orleans in the United States was also located, and at least four cities in Venezuela were not included “due to minimally reliable information”.
In this regard, José Antonio Ortega Sánchez, president of the Citizen Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice, A. C., assured that the current federal government’s strategy has fallen short in stopping the homicides committed nationally, despite the budget that has been allocated in recent years.
“Mexico has already been the world epicenter of urban homicide violence for four years. It is not a coincidence, but the result of the ‘hugs, not bullets’ policy that has been insufficient,” said the specialist.
Mexico leads blacklist.
Of the 50 cities on the 2022 list, 17 are located in Mexico; Brazil provides 10 cities; 7 are located in the United States; 6 in Colombia; 4 in South Africa; 2 in Honduras, and one each from Puerto Rico, Haiti, Ecuador, and Jamaica, respectively.
The exercise was carried out based on official data in cities with more than 300,000 inhabitants; however, the organization specified that the greatest obstacle they face is the lack of transparency. For this blacklist, cities from countries suffering from open military conflicts, such as Syria, Sudan, or Yemen, were not included.
This is because most violent deaths do not correspond to the universally accepted methodology of the ranking 50 of the most violent cities in the world, but to deaths caused by war operations, according to the classification of the World Health Organization.
With the government of Hermelinda ‘Mara’ Lezama, as mayor of Benito Juárez (Cancun), and now as governor, the crime indices and deliberate homicides skyrocketed; currently, Cancun, the jewel of the national tourism crown, has 58 deliberate homicides so far this year 2023 and 171 murders so far this current government, making this municipality the most violent in Quintana Roo; Mara’s numbers indicate that on day 51 of 2023 91 homicides have occurred, 256 deaths in the first 149 days of government, an average of 1.66 deliberate homicides are committed on average, just yesterday 4 people were executed.