President Donald Trump tweeted Mexico is the "second deadliest country in the world," citing the "drug trade is largely the cause" – but the numbers tell a different story, Business Insider reported.
Trump's tweet was likely referring to what Business Insider has said was a disputed study by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies that named Mexico the second-deadliest conflict zone in the world, behind Syria and ahead of Iraq.
The May 9 IISS report found Mexico's nearly 23,000 intentional homicide victims in 2016 fell short of the 50,000 seen in Syria and exceeded the 17,000 recorded in Iraq and the 16,000 registered in Afghanistan.
Organized crime related to the drug trade is behind much of Mexico's violence, and the IISS ranking put Mexico on its list because criminal violence had reached "a level akin to armed conflict," Business Insider reported.
But not all of those deaths were related to organized-crime-related violence, Business Insider reported, citing research by the Justice in Mexico project that found about one-third to half of those deaths appear related to organized crime.
The comparison made by the IISS also is based on absolute numbers, and by that measure, other countries in Latin America are close to or surpass Mexico, Business Insider reported.
Also, homicide comparisons are more often based on per-capita numbers — typically the number per 100,000 people, Business Insider reported.
And when homicide numbers are compared on a per-capita basis, Mexico falls to the middle of the pack in Latin America. Mexico's official per capita homicide rate in 2016 was 17 per 100,000, Business Insider reported.
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