Photo: Deposit Photos

By KELIN DILLON

According to new data from Mexico’s ​​Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, April was Mexico’s second-highest month in 2022 in terms of rate of intentional homicides, an issue exacerbated in the country’s ongoing feminicide crisis, though the homicide rate has declined overall over the past several years.

On the morning of Monday, May 3, the Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection announced Mexico experienced 2,547 homicides in April 2022, coming in second only to March, which had 2,651 registered cases, though Secretary of Security Rosa Icela Rodríguez took the opportunity to point out that this is Mexico’s least violent April since 2018.

“The intentional homicide decreases 17.1 percent,” said Rodríguez. “This is the lowest month of April for five years compared to the historical maximum.”

The data reveals that Mexico experienced an average of 82 intentional homicides per day within the first four months of 2022, a decline of 12.3 percent and 15.8 from 2021 and 2020, respectively. 

Likewise, the security secretary conveyed that 49 percent of all these homicides were concentrated in states with high rates of organized crime like Michoacán, the State of Mexico (Edoméx), Guanajuato, Jalisco, Sonora and Baja California, with just 50 municipalities across these states concentrating 38.8 percent of the country’s intentional homicides.

April was similarly the second-highest month in 2022 for its femicide rate – or intentional homicides committed against women – in Mexico, with 82 cases registered across the country in April, a number 26.8 percent lower than the all-time high of 112 reported femicides in August 2021 and just one case lower than 2022’s peak in February.