Nearly 30,000 Dead in Mexican Drug War

According to a report presented by the Center for Intelligence and National Security, nearly 30,000 people have died in incidents blamed on organized crime groups, mainly drug traffickers, in Mexico since late 2006, when President Felipe Calderon declared war on the country’s cartels.

Nearly 30,000 people have died in incidents blamed on organized crime groups, mainly drug traffickers, in Mexico since late 2006, when President Felipe Calderon declared war on the country’s cartels, the Center for Intelligence and National Security, or Cisen, said in a report.

Some 28,000 violent deaths have occurred in Mexico in the past four years, Cisen director Guillermo Valdes said.

Valdes presented the report Tuesday to Calderon, academics, journalists and security experts at the Dialogue for Security forum.

The federal Attorney General’s Office said in mid-July that 24,826 people had died in drug-related violence since Calderon took office, with the death toll for this year at 7,048.

Calderon has deployed 50,000 soldiers and 20,000 Federal Police officers in several states, especially along the northern border with the United States, to combat drug cartels and other criminal organizations.

The president has started to change his rhetoric, if not his strategy, shifting from calling his policy a “war against organized crime” to a “struggle against crime.”

Calderon said Monday he was willing to take another look at his crime-fighting strategy.

He acknowledged at a meeting with grassroots groups on Monday that Mexico was experiencing “a new stage in the phenomenon of crime” and that there had been “an escalation in criminal violence” that threatened the safety of Mexicans.

A total of 963 clashes between gang members and the security forces have occurred since late 2006, Valdes said.

Mexico’s most powerful drug trafficking organizations, according to experts, are the Sinaloa, Tijuana, Gulf, Juarez, Los Zetas and Beltran Leyva cartels, and La Familia Michoacana.