Mexico: More than 2200 murders nationwide in June 2017 /update 1

Mexican authorities registered 2234 murders nationwide during the month of June 2017, making it the deadliest month on record in at least 20 years. Homicides increased in regions across the country, including the state of Baja California Sur, a popular tourist destination, and Mexico City, which has typically been spared from such violence. In the first six months of 2017, a total of 12,155 murder investigations were opened, 31 percent more than during the same period in 2016.

Underlining the recent trend of increasing gun violence in Mexico City, five people were killed and more than ten were wounded in separate shootings in the capital on Sunday, July 23. In the early hours of Sunday, two gunmen on a motorcycle shot four people in the Llano Redondo neighborhood, killing three. Later in the day, two people were shot and killed at a market in Iztapalapa. The motives for the incidents are not known and investigations are ongoing.

Context

Violence in parts of Mexico is spiraling out of control as cartels adopt increasingly militarized tactics, and fierce turf wars between competing and increasingly fragmented cartels are on the rise. The deterioration of security conditions in Mexico sheds light on the failure of the state's security policies. The government's war on drugs has spanned a decade and claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Between 2006 and 2012, around 120,000 people were killed in cartel-related violence across Mexico, excluding disappearances.

Violence is poised to continue as long as the structural causes of insecurity - such as institutional weakness, corrupt and deficient security forces, poor public services, and a political establishment susceptible to bribes - are not effectively addressed.

Advice

Individuals are advised to remain vigilant at all times.

Due to extreme levels of violence linked to the presence of various armed groups, many Western governments advise against travel to a large portion of Mexican territory, including Guerrero, Colima, Sinaloa, Michoacán, and Tamaulipas states and the northeastern border with the United States, as well as to a lesser extent Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Jalisco, Nayarit, Nuevo León, and Sonora states.