Mexico, .- Mexico recorded 2,716 murders in April, a lower figure compared to the same month of 2018, with an accumulated 11,221 in the first four months of the year, reported the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System.
The number of intentional homicides occurred in April 2019 is lower compared to the 2,762 cases of the same month of 2018, according to the updated data of the System.
In April an average of 90.5 homicides per day were registered, 3.8 per hour according to the statistics.
Between January and last April, the Secretariat reports 11,221 homicides accumulated in the year, a figure that is 6.7% higher than the same statistics of the previous year, when 10,512 murders were registered, the Secretariat report indicated.
Last January there were 2,856 homicides, in February the figure reached 2,804, in March it was 2,845, and 2,716 in April for the cumulative total of 11,221.
Of the total murders recorded in the first four months of the year, 7,985 were committed with a firearm, another 976 with a knife, and 2,260 have not specified the element.
The states with the highest incidence of homicides during the month of April were Guanajuato with 290 cases; State of Mexico with 256, Jalisco with 220, Baja California with 211 and Chihuahua with 2017 murders, said the Secretariat.
In the last quarter of 2018, at the close of the presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), the Secretariat reported 6,599 files of investigation for intentional homicide.
In 2018, the number of murders closed at 33,369 to be the most violent since 1997.
To reduce the rates of violence and insecurity, the current president of Mexico, the leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has already put into operation a National Guard, made up of police and military.
In the first four months of 2019, a total of 530 kidnappings were reported, a decrease compared to the 1,304 that had been recorded on the same dates as last year’s report of the Secretariat. (EFE)
