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The new Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez
Photo: El Universal / ZUMA Press / imago images
Mexico's President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has nominated Rosa Icela Rodríguez as the next security minister in the fight against the powerful drug cartels in the country.
The Senate has yet to confirm the change.
"We do not yet know whether she will accept because she has only just found out," said the left-wing populist head of state on Friday at his daily press conference in the National Palace.
Rodríguez would succeed Alfonso Durazo, who will run for governor of the state of Sonora and therefore resigned from his post.
Rodríguez currently works as general coordinator for ports and merchant navy.
She has had Covid-19 for a month.
In 2019, 35,000 people were murdered
Mexico has experienced very high levels of violence for years.
These are to a large extent carried out by cartels and gangs that are involved in drug trafficking in the USA, as well as kidnapping and extortion.
They often have connections with security forces.
Almost 35,000 people were murdered in Mexico in 2019 - more than ever since the systematic record of cases began.
The murder rate for the year as a whole corresponded to an average of 95 murders per day.
According to the latest figures, there are almost 100 murders every day in the Latin American country with around 130 million inhabitants.
Most crimes are never solved.
Women in particular often find themselves caught between the fronts of the cartels.
They are the victims of femicides every day in Mexico.
An average of ten women are murdered every day, and many more disappear.
In 2012, Mexico introduced the offense of femicide to better capture gender-based murders.
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mfh / dpa
