l****z
发帖数: 29846 | 1 Drug Cartel-Related Murders Exceed 10,000 for Year So Far, According to a
Mexican Newspaper Tally
Thursday, December 02, 2010
By Edwin Mora
A young man lies dead in a public park after being shot to death by
unidentified assailants in the municipality of Apodaca on the outskirts of
Monterrey, Mexico, Wednesday Dec. 1, 2010. The numbered tags mark bullets
casings. (AP Photo/Carlos Jasso)
(CNSNews.com) - Cartel-related murders in Mexico’s drug war have surpassed
10,000 so far this year, according to a tally kept by the Mexican newspaper
Reforma.
As of November 19, the newspaper’s Ejecutómetro (execution-meter) stood at
10,514 for 2010. With an estimated 230 killings a week in the last two
months, the cartel-related murders for 2010 could reach 12,000 by the end of
the year.
That figure is about twice the overall number of U.S. military fatalities in
Iraq and Afghanistan combined, which currently stand at about 5,700 for the
entire duration of both wars to date, as reported by CNSNews.com.
The Reforma newspaper shows that since Felipe Calderón became president of
Mexico in December 2006, there have been 24,534 killings attributed to drug
cartel violence, a more conservative estimate than the Mexican government’s
official estimate of 28,000.
Reforma’s tally includes the murders of police officers, members of the
military, and people under 18 years of age. It does not specify nationality
of those killed, although most were Mexicans. The tally includes
approximately 800 killings after torture and more than 300 decapitations.
The 2010 murder tally in Mexico is about 60 percent higher than the 2009
count of 6,587. Chihuahua, the Mexican state that includes what is arguably
one of the most violent cities in the world, Ciudad Juárez, continues to be
the deadliest, with 2,912 executions so far this year.
In the last eight weeks, there have been approximately 66 killings a week in
Chihuahua, most of them happening in Ciudad Juárez, which borders El Paso,
Texas.
Nevertheless, the murders in Mexico’s border region have gone down as a
percentage of the national total when compared to the rate in 2009.
This year, the U.S.-Mexico border region accounts for only 46 percent of the
drug-cartel killings throughout the country, partly due to the increase in
violence in Mexico’s Central-Pacific region, where approximately 38 percent
of the murders have taken place this year.
The overall uptick in the violent killings this year can be partly
attributed to two northeastern states, Tamaulipas (692) and Nuevo León
(550), which combined account for 12 percent of the 2010 deaths. Those two
states have experienced an eight-fold increase from their 2009 murder tally.
Yucatán is the only state that has not registered drug-related murders so
far in 2010.
According to the U.S. State Department, since 2006, the Mexican government
has mobilized military troops and federal police to combat drug-trafficking
organizations, and those confrontations often result in shootouts. The drug
trafficking organizations also have fought each other for control of drug-
trafficking routes. The shooting eruptions all too often result in the
deaths of innocent bystanders.
Since 2006, the State Department noted, "large firefights have taken place
in towns and cities in many parts of Mexico, often in broad daylight on
streets and other public venues. Such firefights have occurred mostly in
northern Mexico, including Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana, Chihuahua City, Nogales,
Nuevo Laredo, Piedras Negras, Reynosa, Matamoros and Monterrey. Firefights
have also occurred in Nayarit, Jalisco and Colima. During some of these
incidents, U.S. citizens have been trapped and temporarily prevented from
leaving the area."
The State Department says the violent attacks and "persistent security
concerns" mean U.S. citizens should defer unnecessary travel to Michoacán
and Tamaulipas, and to parts of Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Durango, and Coahuila.
Americans living or traveling in those areas should exercise "extreme
caution," the travel warning says. |
|
