Perilous
Times
Study: Mexico homicides rose 23 percent in 2010
MEXICO CITY (AP) — The number of homicides in Mexico rose by
nearly a quarter in 2010 compared to the year before as the drug
war intensified across the country, Mexican statisticians said
Thursday.
The National Institute of Statistics and Geography recorded 24,374
homicides over the course of last year, a 23 percent increase from
19,803 in 2009. Last year's figure represented 22 killings for
every 100,000 residents in the country.
Many but not all of the homicides were committed by organized
crime organizations, the institute told The Associated Press.
Violence has risen in many Mexican regions as a result of drug
trafficking and other organized criminal activity. President
Felipe Calderon's office has said that more than 15,000 homicides
in 2010 were attributed to organized crime.
According to the statistics institute, the U.S.-bordering state of
Chihuahua saw the highest number of homicides with 4,747. Sinaloa,
in northwestern Mexico, registered 2,505.
Sinaloa is the headquarters of the Sinaoloa cartel, while
Chihuahua includes the violent border city of Ciudad Juarez. Those
two states are among the most affected by drug violence, and
together they accounted for 29 percent of Mexico's homicides.
The institute cautioned that its information was preliminary and
said it awaited definitive results that are to be released in
September.
In the northern state of Zacatecas, prosecutors said a town mayor
was found shot to death lying alongside a slain local farm union
official Thursday, a day after they were kidnapped by gunmen.
The dead mayor, Fortino Cortes Sandoval, headed the city
government in Florencia de Benito Juarez. Last week, soldiers
killed six suspected cartel hitmen during a firefight on a highway
linking Sandoval's city with the Teulada municipality.
A dozen mayors have been killed in Mexico since last year, many of
them victims of violence related to drug cartels.
Two metric tons of marijuana were seized by authorities in Puerto
Penasco, Sonora, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the U.S.
border at Arizona, along with weapons and a vehicle, the Defense
Department reported. No further details were available.
And military officials reported the seizure of 22 tons of ethyl
phenylacetate in the port of Manzanillo in Colima state that had
been shipped from Shekou, China. The chemical is used in the
production of methamphetamine.