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CENTRAL AMERICA |
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Central
America One of World’s Most Violent Regions
SAN SALVADOR – Central America is one of the
world’s most violent regions, with a
homicide rate of 33 for every 100,000
inhabitants in 2008, more than three times
the world average, according to a report by
the U.N. Development Program presented
Tuesday in San Salvador.
“Central America is the worst (in terms of
violence), with of course the exception of
Iraq, which is currently at war,” Hernando
Gomez Buendia, general coordinator of the
UNDP document, told Efe.
The document on Human Development for
Central America 2009-2010 said that between
2003 and 2008, “murderous violence took
close to 79,000 lives.”
Honduras showed the the highest rate of
homicides for each 100,000 inhabitants with
58, followed by El Salvador with 52 and
Guatemala with 48.
Violence “cost Central America a total of
$6.506 billion in 2006 (7.7 percent of
regional gross domestic product)”, the
investigation said.
Gomez Buendia warned about the prevalence of
drug-trafficking activities in the area.
“Central America has a propensity for drug
trafficking and on top of that, it’s in a
bad neighborhood,” the expert said,
referring to the region’s proximity to
countries like Colombia and Mexico, though
he added that “not all drug traffickers are
Colombians and Mexicans,” since, in his
opinion, it’s not “just a problem of
foreigners.”
The report, whose presentation was attended
by Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes, said
that the solution does not lie in enforcing
“iron-fisted” policies that have given no
results, nor in applying a “soft touch”
either, which so easily leads to impunity,
but rather a “smart” policy of preventive
action and education.
The document adds that in Central America,
whose population is estimated at 38 million
inhabitants, there are close to 3 million
firearms in circulation.
Guatemala leads the statistics with somewhat
more than a million weapons distributed
among its roughly 13 million people,
according to official figures from 2007. EFE
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