According to official Mexican government data, released on Sunday, more than 7,667 people were killed in Mexico during the first quarter of 2018, that is almost a 20 percent increase year over year, “making it the most violent year in two decades,” said AFP.

This time last year, the figure stood at 6,406 murders, according to the Mexican government.

AFP’s explanation for the explosive killings across Mexico is primarily due to the drug cartel wars. The government’s statistics behind the violent crime is mind-boggling, with total 2017 deaths hitting a staggering 25,339 — which makes last year the most dangerous year ever.

“The worst month was March, when 2,729 people were killed, most of them shot dead. January’s figure stood at 2,549 murders, with another 2,389 in February. The bloodshed follows a proliferation of gangs involved in drug trafficking, as well as stealing fuel, kidnappings, extortion and other criminal activities. In 2017, a total of 25,339 people were killed in Mexico, the highest number since monitoring began 10 years earlier.”

To make matters worse, drug cartels have started targeting politicians, as the Mexican general election is expected to be held on July 01. In recent months, eighty candidates have been “shot, knifed, beaten or burned to death; some have even been dismembered,” said Deutsche Welle.

One thing is for sure: Drug cartels have thinned out the voting selection for early July when Mexicans choose a president and legislators.

Jose Reveles, a journalist, and writer concentrating in drug trafficking said the motives behind drug cartels murdering politicians could include, “voter intimidation and revenge on leaders who ally with rival criminal organizations or even stand up to cartels.”

Though, Reveles said, “the killings of politicians in such large numbers is a relatively new phenomenon, journalists, activists and other noncombatants have long been targeted by cartels.”

“One hundred and seventy-two have been killed since 2006, when Mexico launched its war on drugs,” Reveles said. “Narco-politics isn’t some vague threat,” Reveles added. “It’s a reality.”

Reveles estimates about 45 percent of all cities in Mexico are controlled by organized crime units commingling with drug cartels.

Edgardo Buscaglia, the President of the Institute for Citizens Action in Mexico and a Senior Scholar at Columbia University, said Mexico has a “weak state, co-opted by the mafia.” Which he cited a report by Global Financial Integrity, he added that the country has “the third largest underground economy — after China and Russia.”

A video leaked via Breitbart Texas reveals the turbulent environment before the Mexican general election this summer. A Mexican military unit raids a cartel camp loaded with military assault rifles in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero.

Just days before the raid, a team of cartel gunmen “ambushed and murdered six state police officers,” said Breitbart.

“Mexican soldiers and police forces raided a cartel camp just days after a team of gunmen ambushed and murdered six state police officers in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero. Investigators tracked down the source of the attack and raided the cartel camp used by the gunmen.”

As political killings shake the Mexican general election, the cartel drug battles between rival gangs and military units have turned the country into an absolute war zone with a record amount of murders. While presidential candidates kicked off their official campaigning for what has been called the most significant election in Mexican history, maybe it is time for the United States to begin Trump’s wall construction before the war down south spreads into the United States.