Citation(s) from the Gun Policy News media archive

Print Close

InSight Crime's 2021 Homicide Round-Up

InSight Crime

1 February 2022

Relevant contents

Guatemala: 16.6 per 100,000
As COVID-19 lockdown measures lifted last year, Guatemala suffered growing violence.

The Central American country recorded 2,843 homicides in 2021, giving the country a rate of 16.6 per 100,000 people, according to figures from the government's Center for National Economic Research (Centro de Investigaciones Económicas Nacionales - CIEN). Guatemala tallied 266 more murders last year than in 2020, the least violent year in a decade.

The first stark divergence in year-over-year figures came in May. That month, the country recorded 253 killings, a major jump from the 177 in 2020, when lockdown measures were at their strictest.

October was the country's deadliest month with 293 killings, according to government data.

The Mutual Support Group (Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo), a civil society organization that tracks homicide figures via forensic investigations, put the death toll last year even higher, at 3,715 homicide victims through November.

(…) Such hyperviolence included the massacre of 13 members of a Maya community who were ambushed by armed men while they left Santa Catarina Ixtahuacán, a municipality in the western mountains of the Sierra Madre, to collect corn. Victims included women and children, whose bodies were found dismembered and burned.

The specter of drug violence also loomed over towns along the country's northwestern border with Mexico

ID: N869

As many publishers change their links and archive their pages, the full-text version of this article may no longer be available from the original link. In this case, please go to the publisher's web site or use a search engine.

Array
(
    [type] => 8
    [message] => Trying to get property 'websource' of non-object
    [file] => /home/gpo/public_html/components/com_gpo/helpers/citation.php
    [line] => 172
)