OpenDemocracy – Stay Alive: Turning Around a Failing War

Robert Muggah and Erwin van Veen
Octboer 2011

Within the last ten years a rash of countries across Latin America and the Caribbean earned the ignoble distinction of being amongst the most violent on the planet. With an average intentional homicide rate topping 60 per 100,000 in 2010, El Salvadorians are today more at risk of dying than any other group of citizens in the world.

Not far behind these unlucky few are Jamaicans, Hondurans, Colombians, Venezuelans and Guatemalans. In terms of gross numbers, Brazilian and Mexican cities such as Recife and Ciudad Juárez are also the deadliest unofficial war zones around. And across any of these settings, it is young, black and unemployed males who suffer most. As if the situation wasn’t bad enough, violence appears to be worsening.

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