The Mexican city of Colima is the most violent in the world for the sixth consecutive time

The Mexican city of Colima was the most violent in the world in 2022 for the sixth consecutive year, according to the ranking of the 50 most violent cities in the world with more than 300,000 inhabitants prepared by the Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice.

In total, 601 murders were committed and the homicide rate stood at 181.94 per 100,000 inhabitants, which makes it the third highest since the center began making this list in 2009. The record is held by Juárez, which in 2010 it registered 229 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.

A group of investigators collects evidence from a mass grave in the Mexican city of Colima on April 26, 2022. Leonardo Montecillo/Agencia Press South / via Getty Images

Nine of the 10 most violent cities last year were Mexican: behind Colima are Zamora, Ciudad Obregón, Zacatecas, Tijuana, Celaya, Uruapan, Juárez and Acapulco.

The American New Orleans, in the state of Louisiana, ranked eighth with 70.56 murders per 100,000 inhabitants.

The report also highlights that it is the ninth time in 15 years that a Mexican city is the most violent in the world.

It happened in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and last year.

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In addition, Mexico is by far the country in the world with the most cities where murders are recorded: 17 of the 50 that make up the list.

Colima's homicide rate is similar to that recorded by the Colombian city of Medellín in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Pablo Escobar and his allies waged open war with the government to avoid being extradited to the United States for drug trafficking

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"The situation of the cities of Mexico is the result of failed policies applied so far this century, which has consisted of tolerating the violence of criminal groups and the very existence of their private militias, which challenge the State's monopoly on violence," lamented the Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice in its report.

"But the worst of these policies is the one in force, that of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador: hugs, not bullets

. There is no precedent in the world of a national government –as is the case today in Mexico– that has adopted as a public security policy that of give criminals a free hand to exercise violence and on top of that openly proclaim it," said the center.

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This policy, one of the axes of the president's government, prioritizes investing in the poorest and most punished communities to create job opportunities, rather than directly combating violence.

His detractors consider that limiting the number of operatives has increased insecurity.

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On the other hand, the list indicates that seven cities are in the United States, six in Colombia, four in South Africa, two in Honduras, and one each in Puerto Rico, Haiti, Ecuador, and Jamaica.

Venezuela does not appear due to "lack of minimally reliable information."

The median number of homicides in the 50 most violent cities was 52.11, almost 10 times the world average of 5.36.