Photo: Forum Guns

By THE PULSE NEWS MEXICO STAFF

According to data presented by the government’s Security and Citizen Protection Secretariat (SSPC) on Wednesday, April 20, Mexico had more registered murders in March than in any other month so far this year.

“In March, homicides increased by 17.5 percent compared to the previous four months,” SSPC Secretary Roda Icela Rodríguez said during her monthly security report at President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) daily press conference.

In March of this year, she said, 2,657 intentional homicides were registered, 396 more than those recorded in February.

On a quarterly basis, she said, intentional homicides averaged 82 victims per day during the period from January to March 2022, the lowest level in the last four years.

In total, during the first three months of the year, there were 7,354 registered intentional homicides, 1,063 (12.6 percent) less than those recorded in the same period of 2022 and 1,457 (16.5 percent) less than in the first quarter of 2020.

The SSPC also pointed out that at least half of the March murders occured in Guanajuato, Michoacán, the State of Mexico, Baja California, Jalisco and Sonora, states where there are currently turf wars going on between different drug cartels.