• POINT: Homicides in Mexico are experiencing a marginal but sustained drop since December of 2019 when the security strategy implemented by the López Obrador Administration was able to break a historical upward trend, Mexico’s Minister of Public Security, Alfonso Durazo, said Monday.
• NUMBERS: Coinciding with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s first year in office, Mexico experienced in 2019 its most violent year on record with 34,582 homicides. Per official data, homicides are now down in absolute monthly numbers from 2,885 in December to 2,766 in February.
• DOWNWARD: “Particularly for homicides, numbers are going down. Not in a sensible way yet but with a clear downward trend. We have to strengthen those results to meet the goal of delivering a noticeable drop by December 1 of this year”, said Durazo, during a press conference yesterday.
• REGIONS: Among the regions where the Government would like to see an improvement in the number of homicides are the Pacific coast port of Manzanillo, the Northern border city of Ciudad Juárez, and the Celaya-Salamanca industrial corridor in the central state of Guanajuato.
