IN AUGUST 2014 Enrique Bertini was arriving home in Echesortu, a middle-class neighbourhood of Rosario, Argentina’s third-largest city. While he was preparing to park his pickup truck, Mariano, his 22-year-old son, came downstairs to open the garage from the inside. As soon as he opened the door two armed men drew up on a motorbike. One approached the car while the other forced his way into the garage. In the ensuing struggle Enrique was shot in the thigh and pelvis, and Mariano in the head, fatally. The older man still struggles to make sense of the attack: “This kind of tragedy robs you of your daily life. You lose your north and your south. You have to start all over again.”

Rosario and its 1.3m residents have in recent years been notorious for a nasty reason: a crime rate that far exceeds that of other Argentine cities (see chart). The frequency of murders is nearly triple the national average; 137 people have been killed so far this year. On August 25th more than 20,000 Rosarinos marched through the streets demanding action. Half of residents surveyed in a recent poll said they or a family member had been a victim of crime in the past year.

Other parts of the country can be rough, too. Two-thirds of Argentines say they feel unsafe walking in their neighbourhoods or cities, according to Isonomía, a consultancy. Insecurity is top of the list of national worries, ahead of inflation, poverty and unemployment. But Rosario, located at one of the country’s nodal points, stands out.

Santa Fe, the province which governs Rosario, is home to a network of 32 ports which export grain and soya around the world. That, of course, is an economic asset. But those commercial facilities make Rosario an ideal staging post for transporting drugs to Europe, typically via west Africa. Bolivian cocaine arrives in the city by road; Paraguayan marijuana by river. Most is shipped abroad, but some is distributed in Rosario’s villas: poverty-stricken districts on the city’s outskirts where local gangs fight an increasingly brutal turf war. “Problems used to be resolved through insults or a punchup—now it’s with bullets,” says Gerardo Bongiovanni, who runs Fundación Libertad, a think-tank.

Rosario’s poorest neighbourhoods are most affected, but the spread of violence to richer parts of the city has pushed the issue up the political agenda. Last year Sandro Procopio, a 48-year-old architect, was slain by a bullet outside a construction site. On August 15th Nahuel Ciarrocca, a 28-year-old athlete, was shot dead during a robbery. His murder proved to be a tipping point. “Nahuel awoke the collective conscience,” says Diego Giuliano, president of Rosario council’s security committee. After his death a protest named “Rosario Sangra” (Rosario bleeds) was organised through Facebook.

Santa Fe’s provincial police force, tasked with protecting Rosario’s residents, is clearly part of the problem rather than the solution. Many in its ranks are thought to have close links with the city’s narco gangs. Around 200 are currently under federal investigation. The rot extends to the very top: last October the provincial chief of police was sentenced to six years in prison for involvement in drug trafficking. Miguel Lifschitz, Santa Fe’s governor since December, has struggled to find a replacement: the current chief is the third to hold office so far this year.

The judiciary is in disarray. Provincial judges hand down lenient sentences and allow dangerous criminals out on probation. One reason for this is an overburdened prison system. A fifth of Santa Fe’s 5,000 prisoners are held in police stations because prisons are too full to accept them. In the absence of state justice, some of Rosario’s residents have taken the law into their own hands. After detaining a mugger in February, a group of vigilantes stripped him naked before calling the police. He was fortunate: an 18-year-old was lynched after robbing a pregnant woman in 2014.

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s government did little to address the concerns over security. Since replacing her as president in December Mauricio Macri has tried to make up for lost time. In January he declared a national “security emergency” and authorised the air force to shoot down aircraft suspected of flying drugs across Argentina’s borders. In April his government published the first crime statistics since 2008. The figures show that crime has increased by 10% since then. On August 30th Mr Macri announced a new national strategy to “defeat narcotrafficking”. Although thin on detail, the plan aims to tackle both addiction and dealing.

Although likely to benefit from such measures, Santa Fe is recognised as requiring special treatment. On September 12th the national government agreed to post federal police officers to the province until the end of next year. This was last tried in 2014; it had some effect on the murder rate, as the chart shows, but the root problem was left unsolved. This time both federal and provincial forces will be co-ordinated by a “strategic committee” which will evaluate progress every three months. Some doubt whether the policy will work. Mr Bongiovanni reckons its ministers should seek foreign expertise. While Argentina’s politicians scramble to find a lasting solution, Rosarinos will continue to watch their backs.