The number of homicides in Venezuela in 2018 decreased in comparison with 2017, but the country is still immersed in a brutal “epidemic of violence”.
Thus characterizes the situation of the country the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence (OVV), an NGO that makes a national collection of data on crimes, with the collaboration of the main universities of the country (the government does not publish official data on the subject).
In recent years, Venezuela has always been listed among the most violent countries in its region.
Following are some of the most relevant numbers of the study conducted by the OVV:
81.4 homicides for each 100,000 inhabitants
The study recorded 23,047 violent deaths in the country and calculated a homicide rate of 81.4 for each 100,000 inhabitants.
The data show a decrease in relation to the previous year-when the numbers were 26,616 violent deaths and a rate of 89/100 thousand inhabitants.
(For comparative purposes, Brazil recorded in 2016, last year with available data, 62,517 deaths-a historical record that equates to 30.3 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants).
The NGO assesses that Venezuelan reduction is partly justified by the migration of Venezuelans leaving the country to escape the economic recession, severe hyperinflation and an acute shortage of goods and food.
Not only is the organization not optimistic about this year, Venezuela is the most violent country in Latin America, probably ahead of Honduras (with a homicide rate predicted for 40/100 thousand inhabitants) and El Salvador (probably below 60/ 100,000 inhabitants).
Sociologist Roberto Briceño León, director of the OVV, points out that the Venezuelan rate is “practically twice what is expected in Honduras”-country that last year was first as the most violent in the region.
Participation of official security forces in one third of homicides
According to the study, of the total of 23,047 homicides, only 10,422 are recognized as such by the authorities.
The NGO also says that 7,523 of violent deaths were committed by official security forces and classified as a result of resistance to police authority. The official balances also do not bring these numbers.
“This year’s results show a decrease in the number of homicides committed by criminals and a remarkable increase in victims who have lost their lives in the hands of police forces,” says Briceño.
Far above who’s ceiling
The Venezuelan Violence Observatory says that the “epidemic of violence” affects all parts of Venezuela.
Even the region with the lowest rate of violent deaths, the state of Mérida (in the southwest), has a rate more than two times higher than that considered limit by the World Health Organization (WHO) so that violence is not characterized as epidemic: 10 Homicides for every 100,000 inhabitants. Mérida had at 2018 1 rate calculated at 24 by 100,000.
The most violent areas
The most violent states are Aragua and Miranda, in the north-central of the country, with a rate of 168 and 124.4 homicides, respectively. It’s the same level as last year.
In Aragua, according to Briceño, more than half of the violent deaths were recorded as a result of resistance to authority.
In rural areas, in addition, “an increase in thefts of agricultural producers and trucks distributing food” has been recorded in a country where food and medicine go through scarcity in recent years.
“It steals corn, coffee, sugar, cocoa and even onions,” he denounces Briceño.
The study of the OVV also informs that the majority of homicides are committed “in the street”, mainly by victimizing men, with the use of firearms and during the evenings of weekends.
