Mexico has posted its highest homicide rate in decades, with a record 29,168 murders in 2017.

That is higher than the homicide rate during the peak year of Mexico's drug war in 2011, when there were 27,213 murders.

The Interior Department reported the figures Sunday, which are the highest since comparable records began in 1997.

The country's homicide rate of 20.5 per 100,000 inhabitants was still below that of Brazil and Colombia, at 27 per 100,000, and well below El Salvador's 60.8 killings per 100,000.

Experts say drug violence and other factors, such as bloody turf battles sparked by the expansion of the Jalisco New Generation cartel, played a role in Mexico's rising murder rate.