Mexican president defends security strategy after new killings

“We’re going to continue with our strategy,” Obrador told a news conference on Tuesday. “I’m optimistic. I believe we are going to achieve peace in this country…  It’s a process. We’re moving forward.”

He reiterated his campaign promise to fight crime and violence at its roots by improving living standards for Mexico’s poorest.

The Mexican president also blamed previous administrations for the high rate of crime in the country. He said his predecessors had been “trying to fight violence with violence.”

More than 250,000 people have been murdered in Mexico since 2006, when the army was first deployed to the streets to fight violence.

Former Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto, who took power in 2012, had declared an all-out war on crime.

Obrador did not refer to anyone by name, though.

Last year alone, a record 33,749 were killed in crime-related violence in Mexico. With 23,063 murders as of August this year, 2019 is on track to breaking that homicide record.

On Monday, 13 police officers were killed in an attack by drug cartel members in the western state of Michoacan. The powerful Mexican criminal gang known by the Spanish name Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) claimed responsibility.

And on Tuesday, 14 civilians and a soldier were killed in the southern state of Guerrero after a group of armed individuals attacked security forces, state security spokesman Roberto Alvarez told AFP.

The shootout in the southern state, where drug gangs violently defend trafficking routes, began when an anonymous caller told authorities that an armed group was present in the Tepochica community of the Iguala municipality, the spokesperson said.