UN: Murder rates highest in Central America, Africa

Oct 6, 2011, 11:29 GMT

Vienna - Countries in Central America and Africa have the world's highest murder rates, according to a UN report issued Thursday that said there is a clear link between homicides and levels of development.

Last year, 468,000 people were killed in crimes across the globe, the Vienna-based UN Office on Drugs and Crime said in its first global homicide study.

Thirty-six per cent of these incidents happened in Africa, and 31 per cent in the Americas. Asia accounted for 27 per cent of the murders, Europe for 5 per cent and Oceania for 1 per cent.

Murders have been decreasing in Western countries and Asia since 1995, but such crimes are on the rise in Central America and the Caribbean, 'where today it can be seen to be nearing crisis point,' the UN agency said.

In Central America, one in 50 young men dies a violent death before his 31st birthday.

Drug trafficking, organized crime and the prevalence of firearms have pushed up these numbers, the UN agency's experts said.

The study not only linked low economic development to higher levels of homicide but also gave some evidence that the 2008-09 economic crisis led to higher murder rates.

In eight out of a group of 15 countries that were studied for this phenomenon, more people were killed as economies shrank, jobs disappeared and prices rose.

Jamaica and Costa Rica were among this group, the report said.

Of the countries within the highest bracket - with murder rates higher than 35 in 100,000 people - many were in Latin America: Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras and Venezuela.

Jamaica was also in the group, all of whose other members were in Africa: Ivory Coast, Zambia, Malawi and Uganda.

The global homicide average was 6.9 per 100,000 people last year.

'Crime hampers poor human and economic development; this, in turn, fosters crime,' the UN agency's executive director, Yury Fedotov, wrote. 'Improvements to social and economic conditions go hand in hand with the reduction of violent crime.'

While 80 per cent of all murderers and victims around the globe are men, the report also highlighted that women were at a high risk of being killed by their own family.

In Europe, 52 per cent of the women murdered in 2008 were killed by a relative, spouse or former partner.

'The home is the most likely place for a woman to become a victim of homicide,' the UN agency said.