Colombia’s president Juan Manuel Santos said Tuesday that the country’s homicide rate has dropped to 25.9 per 100,000 inhabitants, the lowest since 1976.
During his weekly press meeting on public security, the president stressed that “we have obtained a homicide rate of 25.9 for every 100,000 inhabitants over the past 12 months, the lowest of the past 40 years.”
Colombia’s official homicide rate for 2015 is set to be released with the presentation of the Medical Examiner’s Office annual report in August.
But, compared to 2014, Santos’ reported homicide rate represents a 2.3% drop.
Colombia’s homicide rate began growing in the mid 1980’s when drug lord Pablo Escobar and his ultra-violent Medellin cartel began a violent campaign against state officials.
At the same time, deadly violence between left-wing guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary groups began emerging.
By 1993, the year of Escobar’s death, the situation had spiraled so far out of control that Medellin’s homicide rate exceeded 370 homicides for every 100,000 inhabitants.
Escobar’s death and the falling apart of the great cartels of the 1990s spurred a drop in homicide rates.
However, violence between left-wing guerrilla groups FARC and ELN, and right-wing paramilitary group AUC kept the homicide rate above 50 until the demobilization of the AUC between 2003 and 2006.