Danger across the border: Nine Mexican cities place among the top 10 deadliest in the world
Newly released data shows that nine Mexican cities will be among the ten deadliest in the world by 2022, according to World of Statistics.
The report named the municipality of Colima in western Mexico as the murder capital of the world with 181.9 homicides per 100 residents.
The city is the second largest in the state of Colima and ranked first on the list in 2021 with 196.6 homicides per 100 residents.
The murder rate is on track to match or slightly surpass in 2023, with 512 murders recorded in the first seven months of the year, an average of 73.1 per month, after 887 people were murdered last year with a record 73 .91 murders per month.
According to World of Statistics, nine of the ten most dangerous cities in the world are located in Mexico. Another two placed 13th and 14th
Mexican troops were dispatched to Tijuana International Airport on August 13, 2022 after a weekend of violent incidents that burned 24 vehicles in the state of Baja California, including 15 in Tijuana, a border town across from San Diego. Tijuana ranked fifth with 105.1 homicides per 100 residents in 2022
Police in Acapulco stand by the body of one of the five men who were shot and killed at Santana’s Sports and Snacks Bar on December 5, 2022. The seaside town, once a top destination for the Hollywood elite, is awash in crime, recording 65.6 homicides per 100 residents in 2022
The municipality of Zamora, located in the western state of Michoacán, came second with 177.7 homicides per 100 residents, while Ciudad Obregón, the second largest city in the northwestern state of Sonora, recorded 138.2 homicides per 100 residents.
Zacatecas, the capital and largest city of the north-central state of Zacatecas, ranked fourth with an average of 134.6 per 100 residents and the Pacific border city of Tijuana, across from California, ranked fifth with 105, 1 murder per 100 inhabitants.
The cities of Celaya and Uruapan in the central state of Guanajuato placed fifth and sixth respectively. Celaya recorded 99.6 homicides per 100 residents and Uruapan followed with 78.3 homicides per 100 residents.
The top 10 list is completed by Ciudad Juárez at nine. The border town, located in the northwestern state of Chihuahua and south of El Paso, Texas, recorded 67.7 homicides per 100 residents. In 2019, it ranked second with 104.4 homicides per 100 residents.
Once a top destination for the Hollywood elite, the resort town of Acapulco ranked 10th, with an average of 65.6 homicides per 100 residents.
Forensic personnel work at the crime scene where unknown assailants left the bodies of three dismembered people in a vacant lot in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, on Aug. 31. Ciudad Juárez, located on the border with northern Mexico, opposite El Paso, Texas, is ranked ninth in 2022 with 67.7 homicides per 100 residents
A forensic technician walks at a crime scene where unknown assailants left the bodies of men wrapped in blankets in Zacatecas, Mexico on February 5, 2022
The Guanajuato municipality of Irapuato ranked 13th with 61.60 homicides per 100 residents and the city of Cuernavaca in the central state of Morelos ranked 14th with 60.2 homicides per 100 residents.
Each of the cities listed in the report is in the Mexican states for which the US State Department has issued travel advisories due to crime and kidnapping.
María del Carmen López, 63, a dual Mexican and American citizen, has been missing since Feb. 9 when gunmen kidnapped her home in Pueblo Nuevo’s Colima community.
In June, one of her seven children held a press conference in Los Angeles and begged President Joe Biden to help find her.
She revealed that the kidnappers sent the family an audio of the woman begging to be taken back home.
Her daughter, Zonia López, said her mother asked them, “Please hurry, act quickly, my children, and give them what they want.” My life depends on it.’