Costa Rica reached 900 homicides before the end of the year, following registering a triple murder on Monday for settling scores in Corralillo de Cartago and the last one on Tuesday night, where a man was murdered with a gunshot to the head.
According to the Judicial Investigation Agency, in February of this year a pattern of violence began to be observed and projections for 2023 pointed to a disproportionate increase in criminal violence.
The homicide figures make this year the most violent year in the history of the Central American country. Prior to this, 2022 emerged as the most unsafe year in the Central American country, where 654 Costa Ricans lost their lives according to data from the Judicial Investigation Organization (OIJ).
Likewise, a survey by the Center for Research and Political Studies (CIEP) of the state University of Costa Rica, which was published on September 20, revealed that the Costa Rican population considers insecurity and crime as the country’s main problem.
The director of the OIJ, Randall Zúñiga, told a local channel that “we must invest more in security” to “recover the country” in the face of the increase in murders. Most of the homicides would be related to criminal groups linked to local drug trafficking and its expansion to different territories where they come into dispute with each other.
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Drug trafficking and insecurity
Drug trafficking has become one of the biggest security problems in Costa Rica, a country that is located in a geographic area where drug shipments transit from the south to the north of the American continent. In recent years, authorities have also seized numerous shipments of cocaine in export containers leaving Costa Rica’s Caribbean ports for Europe.
“In San José, there is an alliance of several criminal groups that are trying to take the place of a criminal group that is being prosecuted,” Zúñiga explained. Likewise, the official pointed to poverty and the exit of young people from the educational system as factors that push them to get involved with criminal groups.
Response from the authorities
This increase in violence is a trend that Costa Rica has been experiencing since 2022. Because of this, the Costa Rican State has proposed numerous solutions to combat crime.
However, none of these have been proven to be completely effective. This is reflected in the continuous increase in murders and other crimes in the country.
And in November, Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves accused the press, the Legislative Assembly, the Judiciary and even consumers for this rise in crime. Likewise, Chaves tried to propose various bills to stop the wave of violence.
However, yesterday the president abandoned these efforts and his responsibility to combat crime and called off the bills presented to Congress, ensuring that “they did not let him work.”
“From this moment on, Congress has the absolute responsibility, without the participation of the Executive, to generate laws that guarantee the effective and forceful deactivation of organized crime groups,” Chaves alleged.
Collateral victims of homicides
According to the Judicial Investigation Organization (OIJ), Costa Rica reflects a 264% increase in the rate of murdered people who became collateral victims of homicides, that is, they did not have any type of direct relationship with the scene.
The trend has been increasing since 2021, when only 7 crimes were recorded under these characteristics. By 2022, an upward curve began to appear in relation to the deaths of people in murders, which had no relationship with the event. That year, the number was 18.
With just a few days left until the end of 2023, 44 murdered people became collateral victims, generating a very worrying increase in the last two years. The judicial authorities expressed their concern regarding the increase in deaths of this type and called for reflection.
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