Sun | Dec 7, 2025

Murders in Mexico, especially of women, grew during pandemic

Published:Monday | July 20, 2020 | 4:21 PM
In this June 7, 2020 file photo, a demonstrator sticks a flyer of a woman who was a victim of violence on the riot shield of a police officer outside Mexico City's security headquarters during a protest amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico City. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The number of homicides in Mexico has grown during the new coronavirus pandemic, including a 9.2% spike in killings of women, according to government figures released Monday.

The data for the first half of 2020 showed homicides increased 1.9% to 17,982, as compared to 17,653 in the same period of 2019.

Activists have long worried that the increased confinement of families to their homes would increase killings of women, and they indeed grew from 448 in the first half of 2019 to 489 in the same period of 2020.

Some experts, meanwhile, had hoped the lockdown caused by the coronavirus would limit the drug gang activity that is a major cause of the violence, but on Monday the Defense Department released an analysis saying that a disturbing video of massed drug cartel gunmen posted online last week was indeed genuine and had received about 16 million views in a few days.

The department said the video showed a column of about 75 Jalisco cartel gunmen dressed in military-style fatigues with a dozen homemade armoured pickup trucks, an anti-aircraft gun, nine belt-fed machine guns, ten .50-calibre sniper rifles, six grenade launchers and 54 assault rifles.

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