The Staggering Death Toll of Mexico’s Drug War

Over the course of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the number of civilian deaths has been staggering. In Afghanistan, more than 26,000 civilians are estimated to have died since the war began in 2001. In Iraq, conservative tallies place the number of civilians killed at roughly 160,500 since the U.S. invasion in 2003. Others have put the total closer to 500,000. But as U.S. involvement in each nation has dropped off in recent years, killings much closer to home, in Mexico, have steadily, if quietly, outpaced the number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq combined. Last week, the Mexican government released new data showing that between 2007 and 2014 — a period that accounts for some of the bloodiest years of the nation’s war against the drug cartels — more than 164,000 people were victims of homicide. Nearly 20,000 died last year alone, a substantial number, but still a decrease from the 27,000 killed at the peak of fighting in 2011. Over the same seven-year period, slightly more than 103,000 died in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to data from the United Nations and the website Iraq Body Count...more