Some 2,004 Mexicans had been murdered in drug violence since the start of this year, or around 18 per day, double the figure in the same period last year, a leading Mexican newspaper reported on Tuesday.
If killings continue to increase at this pace, the year 2009 will see a number of murders close to 6,650, 18 percent more than that of 2008,according to the Mexican daily El Universal.
Even so, this rate represents a decline from the 2,189 murders reported during the last three months of 2008, or 24 per day. Had that rate been sustained over 12 months, some 8,877 would have died.
The El Universal identified Chihuahua as Mexico's most violent state, with 843 or over 40 percent of the country's drug murders. In March, the Mexican government responded by sending 10,000 soldiers to the Chihuahua city of Cuidad Juarez that borders the United States, the final destination of most drugs that pass through Mexico. According to statistics of the daily, the murders there declined from 637 in February to 529 in March.
The army could be patrolling Mexico's streets until at least January 2013 as violent killings continue, Monte Alejandro Rubido Garcia, technical secretary of Mexico's National Public Security Council, said on Tuesday.
Five states -- Chihuahua, Durango, Sinaloa, Guerrero and Baja California -- account for more than three quarters of Mexico's drug-related murders. At the other end of the scale, four states -- Hidalgo, San Luis Potosi, Tlaxcala and Yucatan -- haven't reported a single drug-related death.
The Mexican government has also launched a diplomatic campaign, trying to persuade the United States to curb the southward flow of guns into Mexico across their shared border.
During a visit to Mexico last week, U.S. President Barack Obama said his administration would shoulder more responsibility for both guns and money that fuel the drug cartels, and praised the efforts made by Mexico.
However, analysts said Obama's promise on weapons may be hard to achieve because of strong opposition to gun control within the United States, where citizens' rights to carry firearms were enshrined in the constitution.
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