There were 3,000 reported homicides in March compared to 2,766 in February.

AMLO has said that the murder rate is not tied to economic progress.

Guanajuato has the highest murder rate in Mexico.

Mexico’s murder rate spiked during the month of March, even as the country went into lockdown to overcome the spread of coronavirus. This is according to the latest figures provided by the government. The report indicates that the homicide rate jumped by 8.46 percent as compared to the month of February.

There were 3,000 reported homicides in March compared to 2,766 in February. Mexico started to implement shutdowns and related procedures in March to combat the spread of coronavirus. The pandemic has led to the death of 1,220 Mexicans so far. There are currently just over 12,870 infection cases.

The March homicide rate is the highest recorded since July 2018, when 3,074 murders were reported. This was just a couple of months before President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s inauguration. The murder rate has since averaged at approximately 2,850 each month. More than 46,000 homicides have occurred since he came into office.

López Obrador has blamed drug cartels for the killings as they fight over trafficking zones. Guanajuato currently has the highest murder rate in the nation. 1,163 murders have been recorded in the state since January 2020. A battle between two major drug trafficking organizations, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, and the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, is to blame for the surge in violence and deaths.

The president has acknowledged that the murders are not exactly tied to economic status. The state of Guanajuato is, for example, relatively wealthy. According to AMLO, the escalation of violence in the region has demonstrated that industrialization and economic progress alone cannot stop it.

“Guanajuato is one of the states with the highest sustained rates of economic growth. For a long time, factories, assembly plants, the automotive industry, auto parts have set up shop there, there are jobs. Nonetheless, it is the state with the most violence. That has to do with other causes, inequality. Growth is not synonymous with welfare.”

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel has been blamed for triggering a lot of the violence in the country as it attempts to take over territories controlled by major trafficking organizations, such as the Sinaloa Cartel. The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is presently offering a $10 million reward for information leading to the arrest of its leader, Nemesio ‘El Mencho’ Oseguera Cervantes. His cartel is among the most dominant in Mexico. Its main rival is the Sinaloa federation.

Aside from violence and a climbing murder rate, Mexico is scrambling to deal with the COVID-19 crisis, which is ravaging the economy. Mexican drug cartels, including Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman’s cartel, have taken the opportunity to distribute food and other essentials to the poor. His daughter, Alejandrina Gisselle Guzmán Salazar, was recently spotted handing out merchandize with boxes bearing El Chapo’s image.

The president castigated the cartels following the news. He accused them of being hypocritical and asked them to stop the violence if they really cared about the Mexican people.