La Plaza

News from Latin America and the Caribbean

Death toll in Mexico's drug war raised to 28,000

At least 28,000 people have been killed in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon launched a campaign against organized crime and drug traffickers 3 1/2 years ago, the director of Mexico's national security agency said Tuesday (link in Spanish). Guillermo Valdes, director of the agency known by its Spanish acronym CISEN, offered the number during an official Dialogue on Security with Calderon present.

"It's inevitable that we must accept that violence keeps growing," Valdes said, according to a transcript.

CISEN's figure on deaths in Mexico since December 2006 significantly raises the previous government figure of 24,000, used last month by the federal attorney general.

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City