Zacatecas, the land where hardly anyone feels safe

Data from the latest survey by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi) on citizens' perception of insecurity in the cities where they live reveals that there are corners in Mexico where hardly anyone feels safe.

Zacatecas has two cities, Fresnillo and the capital —which bears the name of the state—, on the list of the three most dangerous according to the vision of its residents.

In this land, more than 97% of the population considers that they feel at risk.

It is closely followed by Ciudad Obregón (Sonora), Cuautitlán Izcalli (in the State of Mexico, half an hour from the country's capital), Irapuato (Guanajuato) and the third largest city in Mexico, Guadalajara (Jalisco).

The message from the neighbors is that despite the federal security strategies, focused on a greater military presence in many areas,

The images that Zacatecas sends to the country every week answered the survey by themselves: men hanged from bridges, dozens executed in the streets, university students kidnapped and murdered when leaving a bar, entire towns without police, corpses in front of the seat of Government state, war scenes in the mountains with burned cars, heavy artillery and more dead.

The Inegi figures highlight only these two cities, of which one of them repeats as the most insecure for its citizens, Fresnillo.

In the list of "cities of interest" offered by the agency, however, some that have become a real horror of drug violence in recent years, such as those of Tierra Caliente, in Michoacán, do not appear.

They do not highlight the opinion of the residents of Aguililla, the municipality that is the birthplace of the leader of the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel, Nemesio Oseguera, alias

, and dozens of towns like this one that have been taken over for months by organized crime.

Nor does Zamora appear, the city that became the most violent in the world this year, with 196.63 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, a rate that would make the most violent cities in Central America tremble.

It does include Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco, as well as the stronghold of the cartel that bears the name of the state and that has spread terror throughout the country.

The city is one of the most important in Mexico, known for years as the cradle of the Mexican Silicon Valley and home to the most important Spanish-language book fair in the world —the Guadalajara International Book Fair—, as well as being the urban center main for the states of the center and northwest of the country.

Since the internal battle of the cartels in the area blew up the image of a prosperous city years ago, with thousands of disappeared —it is the entity that also leads that macabre ranking—, overflowing morgues and unidentified corpses piled up in clandestine graves on the outskirts, its population is torn between the perception of a city that strives to be prosperous,

but that carries the heavy burden of violence.

More than 87% of the residents recognize that beyond the books and the

, it is not easy to live there.

Although they are not in the first positions of perception of insecurity, the message sent by the residents of Cancun or Oaxaca (capital of the State that bears their name) collides with the image of the most desired tourist destinations.

In the Caribbean city of crystalline beaches, 80% of its inhabitants do not feel safe.

And in the colonial capital, colorful and with a high gastronomic and cultural level, seven out of 10 residents consider that it is risky to live there.

The general figures for the perception of insecurity, about 66% of Mexicans, have barely changed since last year's data.

Just as the homicide data registered in Mexico has not increased considerably either, a note that the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador proudly highlights in each security report.

But Mexico has reached such high levels of violence that they have been maintained for more than three years, with almost 100 homicides a day, that the only possible good news is that they drop.

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