Guatemala registers a 10 percent increase in the number of murders during 2022. | Photo: EFE

Guatemala City, September 25 (RHC)-- A Guatemalan human rights organization has revealed that the country averaged in the first eight months of 2022 a total of 12 murders every 24 hours.  In its most recent report, the humanitarian organization Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (GAM) stated that between the months of January and August, 2,854 homicides have been committed in Guatemala, evidencing the worsening security situation in the Central American country.

According to GAM leader Mario Polanco, the increase in homicides in 2022 is 10.1 percent compared to 2021.  The monthly average of violent deaths from January to August was 356 and 55 women murdered each month in 2022.

Among the total fatalities specified this year by the GAM are 445 women, a difference of 49 more than the femicides registered in the same period of 2021.  According to data from the National Institute of Forensic Sciences (Inacif), at least 317 minors were murdered during the 8 months of the year in Guatemala.

A GAM report released in 2021 stated that more than 60,000 people have been murdered in Guatemala in the last decade.