Data analysis has revealed the ten cities with the worst murder rate across the globe.
Research published by WorldAtlas has ranked the top ten cities with the highest number of recorded murders per 100,000 members of their population.
Seven separate cities in Mexico reached the top ten, despite the country reporting a declining homicide rate in recent years.
The western city of Colima topped the chart with a murder rate of 140.32 per 100,000 people, the equivalent to roughly three homicides for every 2,000 residents.
Colima is renowned as the murder capital of the world and the city’s homicide rate has peaked as high as 182 in recent years.
This year, Ciudad Obregón in east Mexico ranked second, with a rate of 117.83 murders per 100,000 people.
Five other Mexican cities, Zamora, Manzanillo, Tijuana, Zacatecas and Ciudad Juarez, reached the top ten.
The remaining three entries were filled by Port-au-Prince in Haiti, Guayaquil in Ecuador and Mandela Bay in South Africa.
Mexico had reported a fall in its homicide rate in 2022, although the decline appeared to flatline in 2023 and remains staggeringly high in 2024.
Many of the country’s recorded murders are attributed to disputes between known drug cartels and the national homicide rate sits around 25.
In some areas, most notably Mexico City, the murder rate has fallen drastically, officials report a rate as low as eight in the capital.
However, the average number of missing people remains shockingly high, with hundreds, often pushing one thousand, reported missing in Mexico City annually.
