Uruguay registers a 39% increase in homicides so far this year, according to official data

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Uruguayan Interior Minister, Luis Alberto Heber, reported that between January and July of this year there were 188 homicides, which represents an increase of 39% over the previous year, according to official crime figures presented this Tuesday by the portfolio.

As detailed by the hierarch at a press conference, in the same period of 2021 there were 135 homicides, in 2020 there were 179 and in 2019, 173. “It is the first time that we have this comparative semester of years without a pandemic,” Heber said regarding to the years 2022 and 2019.

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Of the 188 completed homicides, 94 were due to conflicts between criminal groups, drug trafficking and settling scores, 29 for unknown reasons, 28 for domestic violence and related situations, 20 for spontaneous altercations, 9 for robbery and 8 for other reasons.

“50% are conflicts between criminal groups, drug trafficking and settling scores,” justified Heber.

In the first half of 2022, 18,634 complaints of domestic violence were registered. During the same period, in the previous year there were 16,777, in 2020 there were 18,788 and in 2019, 18,529.

In addition, the minister stressed that in the rest of the crimes – theft, robbery and cattle rustling – there was a decrease in the figures and that is a reflection “exclusively” of what is seen in the streets of the country, of the police deployment and the force that “has put up a good fight.”

The complaints for theft, so far this year, were 58,250; those registered for robbery, 12,193; and of cattle rustling there were 603.

Heber affirmed that the decrease in crimes is due “to the deployment, mobilization and dynamism” that his management has put into the Police and that it differs from previous periods of government -of the leftist Broad Front, between 2005 and 2020-.

In addition, he responded to the current opposition that affirmed that the decrease was due to the pandemic and maintained that this hurt the Ministry because “a very effective work of the police in combating crime was denied.”