Salamanca is becoming one of the most violent cities in Mexico and around the world. Massacres in this city had left 30 dead in the last month.
In the last six months this municipality, with a population of around 280 thousand inhabitants, has registered over 270 violent murders, for an average of 46 per month.
From September to February there are 274 victims, and Salamanca’s homicide rate for this period is 97 per 100 thousand inhabitants.
In 2018, the national rate was 23.10 and that of Guanajuato was 43.83. The rate in Salamanca is 4 times bigger than the national average and twice as big as the state average.
Salamanca needs at least 150 State Police officers to face the violence situation.
The changes of municipal, state and federal governments, and their first actions implemented in security have not managed to contain the murders in this city. Instead of going down, the violence increased since September and the last months it got worst.
In the first 10 days of March, Salamanca registered 35 murders.
Just on Saturday, March 9, 15 people were executed in the nightclub “La Playa”, in one of the worst massacres in the history of Guanajuato.
The Attorney General’s Office confirmed this information and stated that
if the average number of murders in the last six months is maintained, the number of victims in Salamanca could reach 552 in one year, and the homicide rate would be 197 per 100 thousand inhabitants, turining it into the most violent city in all of Mexico.
That level of violence would exceed that of cities such as Tijuana, with a rate of 125 homicides per 100 thousand inhabitants during 2018; or Caracas, Venezuela, with a rate of 111 victims per 100 thousand inhabitants during the same year.
After the nightclub attack, the mayor of Salamanca, Beatriz Hernández Cruz, asked the governor of Guanajuato, Diego Sinhue Rodríguez, to eliminate the Single Command and allow the municipality to have its own corporation.
While Salamanca native, former mayor and federal representative Justino Arriaga criticized the current state government for not presenting a security plan.
“5 months into this state administration, there is no security plan for Salamanca”, Arriaga declared.
Since September 2017, the municipality is in charge of the so-called “Single Command” featuring agents of the Public Security Secretariat of Guanajuato.
The mayor of Salamanca, Beatriz Hernández, accompanied by Morena legislators asked for state and federal support to create the Municipal Police.
“We are very concerned about the insecurity situation in Salamanca in recent months. Events like the 15 people massacre generate terror, paranoia and psychosis among our local society, and it seems like the previous Municipal and State administrations are to blame, since they did not assume their responsibility confronting criminal groups,” Beatriz Hernandez concluded.
SMT Newsroom with information from am.com.mx
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