Homicide rate increases in the US 1:14
(CNN Spanish) --
After the Caribbean islands of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, two Latin American countries have the highest homicide rate in the world: El Salvador and Honduras top the list of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which has been keeping count of deaths by homicide since 2014. The United States has the highest homicide rate among developed countries.
There were 37.16 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in El Salvador in 2019, according to the most recent data from the UNODC.
Three years later, on Saturday, March 27, 2022, the Central American country experienced the most violent day since Nayib Bukele became president in June 2019. The police and the government then attributed the responsibility to the gangs for the rise in the number of homicides.
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For Tiziano Breda, analyst for Central America at the International Crisis Group (ICG), the increase in murders is one of the pressure measures that gangs have used in the past and continue to use in El Salvador.
“They have always been messages from the gangs to the governments.
But this is worrying because of the number of homicides, the most violent day of the Bukele administration," Breda said.
Nearly 5,000 people have been arrested during the state of emergency 3:01
According to UN experts, the main reason for high murder rates in America is due to organized crime.
In Honduras, where the homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants was 36.33 in 2020, a phenomenon similar to that of El Salvador occurs.
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"Drugs in Honduras... here there is room for everything, and the consolidation of drug traffickers in the first place. Second, the maras and gangs dominate the territories more than the state," Migdonia Ayestas, director of the Observatory, explained to CNN. of Violence of the National Autonomous University of Honduras.
It is important to note that none of these Latin American countries are at war.
However, America is the continent with the most murders, registering 160,800 of the 436,900 deaths in 2020 in the world due to homicide, which the UNODC defines as intentionally killing someone without including suicides or deaths that occur in wars.
"Since the beginning of the 21st century, organized crime has killed as many people as all armed conflicts worldwide combined," says the UN.
Here's a look at the most recent UN data for the countries with the highest homicide rates:
Jamaica
44.68 (per 100,000 population)
Trinidad and Tobago
38.57
El Salvador
37.16
Honduras
36.33
South Africa
33.46
Mexico
28.37
Belize
25.65
Guatemalan
26.04
Colombia
22.64
Brazil
20.86
The US has the highest murder rate among developed countries
The United States leads the table among the most developed countries with a rate of 6.28 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants registered by the UNODC in 2020. New Zealand (2.63 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants), Canada (1.97), Finland (1.64) or France (1.32) are far below.
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The shootings recorded in the last week in the United States, including the massacre in Buffalo in which an 18-year-old man killed 10 people in a supermarket, put the focus back on the debate on the increase in violence with firearms. in the country and its regulation.
Additionally, the rate of gun-related deaths in the United States appears to be getting worse.
Between 2019 and 2020, the overall firearm homicide rate increased about 35% and was the highest on record since 1994, according to data released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). , for its acronym in English).
CNN Español's Merlin Delcid and Elvin Sandoval, and CNN's Stephen Collinson and Jacqueline Howard contributed to this report.
Guns in the United StatesHomicidesHomicides El SalvadorHonduras