A triangle of deathPosted: 14/06/2012 By Antonio Sampaio,
Research Assistant, Survival and the Armed Conflict Database The
Economist has dubbed it ‘the tormented isthmus‘. It is the most
murderous region on earth: the ‘northern triangle’ of Central
America formed by Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. The
bloody drugs war that has raged in neighbouring Mexico since
2006 has spilled over into a region already destabilised by
years of civil war in the 1980s, plagued by local gangs and
corrupt institutions, and with too few police. While adding the
region to the institute’s Armed Conflict Database recently, we
unearthed a raft of alarming statistics. These include: - Around
50,000 people have been killed in Mexico since President Felipe
Calderon launched his war on drugs in 2006. - During the same
period, 90,000 people have been murdered in Guatemala, Honduras
and El Salvador (according to national law-enforcement sources)
– even though the three countries’ combined population of 28
million is around one quarte