Mexican Drug Cartel Situation Report (SITREP) - Mexican Drug War Death Toll Numbers from December 2006 to December 2011.

Mexican Drug Cartel Situation Report (SITREP) - Mexican Drug War Death Toll Numbers from December 2006 to December 2011.

It can be difficult to find death toll numbers if you do not know where to look and because of media and/or political bias.  The numbers below come from government sources/government related sources except for the very last set of numbers which came from media sources (New York Times and Borderland Beat) that cited Mexican government numbers.  The takeaway from this chart that is the death toll numbers per year continue to increase as of late December 2011.

Mexican Death Toll Numbers:

December 2006 to December 2008 - 7000

2009 - 14300  (7300 for 2009 alone)

2010 - 27000 (13000 alone for 2010)

2011 – 47,515 (20,515 for 2011 alone ***20K seems awfully high; there’s a reporting error somewhere the totals for 2011 were ~12K but those numbers to add to 47.5K. 2011 remains confusing, but the war total of 47K is consistent with multiple sources)

Sources: 

McCaffrey, Barry.  After Action Report – General Barry R McCaffrey USA (Ret) VISIT MEXICO – 507 DECEMBER 2008. 29Dec08. http://www.mccaffreyassociates.com/pdfs/Mexico_AAR_-_December_2008.pdf; Accessed 25Jan12

Finklea, Kristin, William Krouse and Mark Randol.  Congressional Research Service:  Southwest Border Violence: Issues in Identifying and Measuring Spillover Violence.  25Jan11. http://opencrs.com/document/R41075/. Accessed 25Jan12.

Smith, Phillip.  Mexico 2010 Death Toll Higher Than Afghanistan. 3Jan11. http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2011/jan/03/mexico_2010_death_toll_higher_af. Accessed 25Jan12.

Cave, Damien.  Mexico Updates Death Toll in Drug War to 47,515, but Critics Dispute the Data.  11Jan12. http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2012/01/mexico-updates-death-toll-in-drug-war.html.  Accessed 25Jan12