RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – This weekend there were eight homicides in Uruguay, totaling 41 murders during May.
After two years (2018 and 2019) of very high homicide figures, Uruguay went through a decrease in these values in the last two years. The government attributed it to the new security policy and -after its approval- to the Law of Urgent Consideration (LUC), which proposed major changes in security matters.
However, the reality in the country so far this year is different and shows a significant increase in homicides, especially so far in May. There were 41 cases, more than double compared to the same period in 2021.
Although the seriousness of the situation was already public knowledge – the Ministry of Interior reported in April that during January, February and March, there was a 33% increase in the number of homicides -, last weekend showed that the country is facing a very delicate situation: there were eight homicides in approximately 48 hours.
The first case occurred on Saturday: a man was riding a bicycle near the Antel Arena (Montevideo) when he was shot. Although police officers were in the area and took him to a medical center, the man did not survive.
That same day, in the department of Canelones, witnesses testified that a man got out of a car and shot another man at least five times. Three of those shots hit him and took his life, according to La Diaria.
The third case was on Saturday night when a man was shot dead at the door of a club in the Peñarol neighborhood. In the same area, a shopkeeper was assaulted on Sunday morning. According to the Ministry of the Interior, the man had resisted, for which reason the offender opened fire and killed him and wounded his wife. There were seven homicides in Peñarol during May.
On Sunday night, a man murdered his partner, then his son, and finally took his own life by jumping off a bridge in the department of Artigas.
Finally, also on Sunday night, there was a shooting in Piedras Blancas (Montevideo) in which two men died, and two more were wounded, according to Subrayado. Eighteen pods were found in the area.
“Unfortunately, we cannot foresee these homicides that sometimes happen on any street corner,” Interior Minister Luis Alberto Heber said in an interview with Subrayado, referring to what happened over the weekend.
Regarding the homicide of the grocer in Peñarol, the official said that “it happened a few blocks away from the (police) mobile, but we could not foresee that situation, nor was there a situation to avoid that the store could be robbed, stolen and that it cost the life of that worker, which we regret very much”.
According to Heber, “these are situations that the Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating, but they have to do with situations related to the collection of drug bills; there are at least two of them; the one in Canelones is not very clear either”.
According to the continental report by the InSight Crime Foundation, Uruguay’s homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants was 8.5 in 2021. That figure places the country above others, such as Paraguay and Nicaragua. According to the report, there is no data for Argentina, although there was data for 2020 when the rate was 4.6.
With information from Infobae