MEXICAN AUTHORITIES have released new data which shows that over 47,500 people have been killed in drug-related violence over five years.
The Mexican attorney general’s office said in a statement yesterday that 47,515 deaths had occurred between December 2006 and September 2011.
Three out of every four killings in Mexico are now linked to drugs.
Last year was the first of the five years in which the increase in murders was significant lower than that of the previous year. Between 2007 and 2008, the number of killings rose 110 per cent, and it rose by a further 63 per cent in 2009.
That murder rate grew 70 per cent between 2009 and 2010, while it rose by 11 per cent the following year; almost 13,000 people were killed between January and September 2011.
Officials said that most of the drug gang-related deaths were concentrated within eight states.
The attorney general’s office said it would continue to work to create a national database of the victims of drug-related killings in order to help with the investigation of crime and to provide more information to the relatives of those killed.
- Additional reporting by the AP
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