HomeNewsAnalysisInSight Map: Counting Federal Casualties in Mexico
ANALYSIS

InSight Map: Counting Federal Casualties in Mexico

INFOGRAPHICS / 19 APR 2011 BY PATRICK CORCORAN EN

The Mexican government has announced that since 2000, 470 federal forces have been killed in fighting against organized crime, with 84 percent of that number coming during the presidency of Felipe Calderon.

According to El Universal, reports handed over after requests made via the Federal Institute for the Access to Public Information (IFAI) show that 332 of those killed were members of the Federal Police, while the remaining 132 belonged to the marines or the army. The number of federal personnel killed during the Calderon administration compares with recent reports of 2,076 police officers dead during the same period.

More than half of overall deaths in the country were concentrated in five states: Chihuahua, Nuevo Leon, Michoacan, Guerrero, and Tamaulipas. In five other states – Baja California Sur, Yucatan, Tlaxcala, Quintana Roo, and Tabasco – no federal troops have died since 2000, according to the report.

Almost 84 percent of the deaths are said to have come during the Calderon administration. Calderon has made his reliance on the army the hallmark of his security policy, first sending the military after drug traffickers in Michoacan days after his inauguration on December 1, 2006.

However, the figures for military troops killed conflict with previous reports on the army, leaving one wondering both how to explain the different figures for such a basic piece of information, and how reliable any of the reports coming out of the Mexican government really are.

For instance, according to August reports using figures from Mexico's Secretariat of Defense (SEDENA), 191 soldiers and marines had been killed in operations against drug traffickers during Calderon's time in office. In October 2010, however, SEDENA offered a figure of 111 soldiers killed from January 2007 through July 2010. Interestingly, the same figure of 111 soldiers killed appeared as well in reports from July 2009.

Furthermore, according to the book "Politics in Mexico: The Democratic Consolidation" by Roderic Ai Camp and also based on an IFAI request of SEDENA, 55 soldiers were killed during the first three years of the Vicente Fox administration. While not entirely inconsistent with the military's most recent report, such a large proportion of dead soldiers – 39 percent of the 132 reported most recently-- coming from just the first half of the Fox administration, coupled with the much heavier reliance on the military under Calderon, is an unlikely proposition.

As hard as it may be to believe, these consistently conflicting statistics seem to indicate that the Mexican armed forces is not keeping very close track of how many of its soldiers have died and under what
circumstances

.deaths_of_mexican_soldiers

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

FEATURED / 28 APR 2021

The deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl has displaced heroin as the leading driver of the ongoing opioid crisis in the United…

FENTANYL / 19 JUL 2021

The United States saw a record toll in drug overdose deaths last year, driven in part by two powerful synthetic…

COLOMBIA / 18 AUG 2021

Seizures of coltan in Colombia have shown the complex networks used by armed groups to smuggle the valuable mineral from…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela Coverage Continues to be Highlighted

3 MAR 2023

This week, InSight Crime co-director Jeremy McDermott was the featured guest on the Americas Quarterly podcast, where he provided an expert overview of the changing dynamics…

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela's Organized Crime Top 10 Attracts Attention

24 FEB 2023

Last week, InSight Crime published its ranking of Venezuela’s ten organized crime groups to accompany the launch of the Venezuela Organized Crime Observatory. Read…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime on El País Podcast

10 FEB 2023

This week, InSight Crime co-founder, Jeremy McDermott, was among experts featured in an El País podcast on the progress of Colombia’s nascent peace process.

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Interviewed by Associated Press

3 FEB 2023

This week, InSight Crime’s Co-director Jeremy McDermott was interviewed by the Associated Press on developments in Haiti as the country continues its prolonged collapse. McDermott’s words were republished around the world,…

THE ORGANIZATION

Escaping Barrio 18

27 JAN 2023

Last week, InSight Crime published an investigation charting the story of Desafío, a 28-year-old Barrio 18 gang member who is desperate to escape gang life. But there’s one problem: he’s…