Mexico Registers Its Highest Homicides On Record
The country racked up nearly 30,000 homicides in 2017, the most since it began reporting the statistic in 1997. But that doesn't make it the "most dangerous" country as President Trump claimed.
More than a decade after Mexican soldiers deployed in the streets and mountains to fight a U.S.-backed drug war, Mexico has something to show for it: more killings than ever.
Mexico recorded 29,168 homicides last year, according to preliminary government data published this week. While the tally won't be finalized for several months, security experts are already certain the 2017 figure will mark the country's highest murder rate at least since official statistics began in 1997 — and potentially the highest in the nation's modern history.
"This trend started in 2016 and it comes back to a failed security strategy that has been completely exhausted," says Francisco Rivas, director of the Mexican research group the National Citizens'
