Mexico murder total surpasses 2016: officials

The number of murders in Mexico in 2017 has already surpassed last year's total, with October the most violent month in 20 years according to official figures released Monday. From January to October, 20,878 murders were recorded, compared with 20,547 during the whole of 2016, data released by the Ministry of Public Security showed. Violence has surged across Mexico since the government declared war on the country's powerful drug cartels in 2006. More than 2,300 of this year's killings took place in October, according to the figures which reflect crimes investigated by prosecutors in Mexico's 32 states. The most deadly states were Guerrero in the south, followed by the heavily-populated central State of Mexico, and Baja California in the northwest. Semaforo Delictivo, a civil society project promoting peace in Mexico, last month branded 2017 the most dangerous year in recent history, projecting more than 24,000 homicides by the end of the year. It said the high figure reflects a lack of action on the part of the authorities alongside a "failure" of their anti-crime strategy. With these latest figures, the total number of murders since 2007 rises to 196,479, but authorities have not made clear how many were related to organized crime.