BACKGROUND: Facts and figures on the Mexican drug war

Nov 16, 2011, 10:04 GMT

Berlin - Competition between Mexico's powerful drug cartels has exploded into a deadly war. The numbers speak for themselves:

- Tens of thousands have died. The Mexican government hasn't released an official death toll since 2010, but Mexican press reports agree the fighting has killed more 40,000 people since 2006. NGOs say the number is closer to 50,000 - more than twice as many than have died in Afghanistan in the same period.

- The death rate is rising dramatically. In 2007, more than 2,400 people died in the drug war. By 2010, the one-year toll was more than 15,000. The death rate has risen by thousands every year since President Felipe Calderon deployed troops in 2006.

- People are fleeing in fear. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, as of 2010 more than 230,000 Mexicans had left their homes to escape violence, about half crossing the border to the US.

- The drug war is big business. Experts say Mexican drug cartels earn up to 25 billion dollars a year and operate in 47 countries. The Sinaloa cartel, which controls about half of Mexico's illegal drugs business, is said to employ 150,000 people - nearly as many as Starbucks.

- The scale of the operations is staggering. In one of the drug war's biggest busts, in 2007 police seized 207 million dollars - in cash. Stacked up, the bills filled a mid-size room. In July, police confiscated 839.5 tonnes of chemicals used in synthetic drug production, in a single raid in Queretaro state.

- Mexico isn't fighting alone. As the drugs' eventual destination, the US is quietly but heavily engaged in the drug war too. The US provides Mexico with hundreds of millions in aid annually to fight the cartels. About a third of 9,900 DEA personnel are currently assigned to Mexico and smuggling. And the US military is training and advising its Mexican counterparts on fighting the cartels.

- The fight is heating up. Mexican security forces capture or kill high-profile cartel bosses every month. That goes for its own ranks too - Mexican federal police plan to oust an estimated 10 per cent of 33,000 police forces suspected of corruption and connections to the cartels.