Venezuela battles with explosive murder rate

Breathe a sigh of relief. Because Trinbago doesn’t win the prize for the most murders in our region.

Our neighbour, Venezuela, is fighting to control homicide rates that exceed casualties in the bloody Mexican drug war.

The New York Times reports that Venezuela has a homicide rate of 200 murders for every 100, 000 Venezuelans.

It further places this figure in perspective.

In Iraq, a country with about the same population as Venezuela, there were 4,644 civilian deaths from violence in 2009, according to Iraq Body Count; in Venezuela that year, the number of murders climbed above 16,000,

NY Times.

Our Spanish speaking neighbour has been struggling with this astronomical amount of killings for years and they’ve been steadily rising, the article says.

The Venezuelan media stirred national apathy to these figures  in August after a newspaper published a full-length front page photo of bloodied bodies strewn about a morgue. Click here to see the front page. (Warning graphic material)

Moreover what’s interesting , is the connection that Venezuela’s high murder rate might have to Trinidad’s. Specifically, how much of Trinidad’s illegal arms and ammunition wanders across from Venezuela, undetected by authorities, but grasped by  local criminals.

PS. Back from month’s blogging rest. Hoping to start weekly posts as of this week. 🙂

David