Cartel Battles Push Mexico to Second Place on Global Conflict List in 2016 Elizabeth Roberts - CNN
go to original May 9, 2017

Update: Mexico Rejects Label as World's Second-Deadliest Conflict Zone (Bloomberg)

It was the second deadliest conflict in the world last year, but it hardly registered in the international headlines.

As Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan dominated the news agenda, Mexico’s drug wars claimed 23,000 lives during 2016 — second only to Syria, where 50,000 people died as a result of the civil war.

“This is all the more surprising, considering that the conflict deaths [in Mexico] are nearly all attributable to small arms,” said John Chipman, chief executive and director-general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which issued its annual survey of armed conflict on Tuesday.

“The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan claimed 17,000 and 16,000 lives respectively in 2016, although in lethality they were surpassed by conflicts in Mexico and Central America, which have received much less attention from the media and the international community,” said Anastasia Voronkova, the editor of the survey.

In comparison, there were 17,000 conflict deaths in Mexico in 2015 and 15,000 in 2014 according to the IISS.

Voronkova said the number of homicides rose in 22 of Mexico’s 32 states during 2016 and the rivalries between cartels increased in violence.



...Mexican drug cartels take in between $19 billion and $29 billion annually from US drug sales, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Rivalries between the cartels wreak havoc on the lives of civilians who have nothing to do with narcotics. Bystanders, people who refused to join cartels, migrants, journalists and government officials have all been killed.

Read the rest at CNN

Related: Is Mexico Really the World's Most Dangerous War Zone? (Forbes)

Related: Eight Mexican, and 4 U.S. Cities on World’s Most Murderous List (World Tribune)

Related: IISS Armed Conflict Survey Spotlights Central America (Deutsche Welle)

Related: Campaign to Reduce Killings in World Homicide Leader Brazil (Associated Press)

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