8 of 10 most violent world cities are in Mexico

A new report from the Citizens’ Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice reveals that 8 Mexican cities rank amongst the world’s ten most violent cities.

According to data from the 2021 “Top 50 Most Violent Cities in the World” ranking, the Aztec nation’s most violent cities are Zamora, Ciudad Obregón, Zacatecas, Tijuana, Celaya, Ciudad Juárez, Ensenada and Uruapan.

Zamora, located in the Mexican state of Michoacán, ranked first on the list with a rate of over 196 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, Expansión reported.

"The rate of 196.63 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants is the second highest recorded since the ranking was first published, surpassed only by Ciudad Juarez’s rate of 229.06 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2010,” the Citizen’s Council stated in a report published on Monday.

After Zamora, Ciudad Obregón and Zacatecas round out the top three most violent Mexican cities – with homicide rates standing at 155.77 and 107.47 per 100,000 inhabitants, respectively.

These figures are on a par with those recorded in cities such as Medellin and Cali during the darkest days of the Colombian government’s war with FARC terrorists in the 1980s and 1990s, the Council added.

In terms of a top ten ranking, the eight Mexican cities are followed by Saint Louis in the United States and Kingston, Jamaica.

"Mexico has been the global epicenter of urban homicide violence for the last three years. It is not a coincidence, but rather the result of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” policy – which essentially prevents law enforcement officials from prosecuting gang and cartel violence.

But this is not Mexico’s first time topping the list. In fact, for the past five years a Mexican city has ranked first in the report – which includes 11 cities in Brazil, seven in the United States, four in South Africa, four in Colombia, two in Honduras and one in Puerto Rico, Haiti, Ecuador and Jamaica.

Within the top 50 ranking, the report also lists Mexican cities including Colima, Acapulco, Cuernavaca, Irapuato, León, Chihuahua, Cancún and Culiacán -- bringing the total number of Mexican cities listed to 18.