With over 29,000 homicides, 2017 was Mexico's most violent year on record [View all]

[sandensea]

Mexico has recorded its highest homicide rate in years, with the government’s interior ministry reporting there were 29,168 murders in 2017, more than in 2011 at the peak of Mexico’s drug cartel-stoked violence.

The death toll is Mexico’s highest since the government began keeping records in 1997, and shot past 2011’s tally of 27,213 homicides, the Associated Press reports. According to the Interior Department, Mexico’s homicide rate this past year equated with 20.5 murders per 100,000 residents.

The homicide rate is still significantly below those of Brazil and Colombia (both 27), Honduras (42.8), Venezuela (57), or El Salvador (60.8), AP reports.

The figure, however, is based on the number of police investigations, rather than individual deaths, Mexico security analyst Alejandro Hope noted - meaning the total real rate is likely far higher.

“The violence in Mexico has many causes. Drug trafficking is one of them, of course, but it is not the only one,” Hope told AP.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto had campaigned pledging to end the epidemic of drug cartel violence that plagued the country between 2006 and 2012; but his administration saw only a temporary dip in homicides between 2012 and 2014.

At: http://time.com/5111972/mexico-murder-rate-record-2017/