Deadiest Places on Earth: Acapulco, Mexico, N. America
From Glamour to Gunfire
Acapulco, Mexico, N. America
You might be very excited to win a vacation to Acapulco, Mexico. Known for its wild nightlife, placid waters and fresh tropical air, this vacation draws over a hundred thousand tourists every year. But if you explore the shops and stroll along the beach soaking up the deliciously warm weather, you might be disturbed to learn that Acapulco is the world’s second-deadliest city.
According to ABC News, the murder rate is twenty-eight times greater in Acapulco than in the United States, with 142 homicides for every 100,000 people.
The victims aren’t limited to blue-collar residents, but extend to tourists as well; their causes of death are often the result of negligence, incompetence, and assault, both in and out of the resort areas.
In January 2017, Colorado, USA teen Alejandra Villanueva Ibarra died in a frantic stampede as concertgoers fled a nightclub shooting.
Tourists, such as one Canadian resident, Barbara McClatchie Andrews, 74, was robbed by her bus driver, strangled to death and dumped along the roadside. Christine Fensome, while on her honeymoon, died from a heart attack caused by eating a fish poisoned with mercury.
In 2016, the estimated number of homicides was 20,800 with 2,000 murders occurring in January alone. Between 2007 and January 2017 there have been a total of 175,000 murders.
So how did one of the nicest vacation spots become the world’s second-deadliest? It all has to do with a man named Arturo Beltran Leyva, an infamous drug lord in Acapulco who was killed in Cuernavaca by Mexican security forces in 2009. Cartels all over Mexico saw the loss of this leader as an opportunity to compete for power and control, diversifying their crimes into taxation and kidnapping. Tourists, businesses and even children are abducted by gangs who ask for liberation fees.
Government officials reassure tourists that their safety is the government's biggest concern. If they don’t protect tourists, the city will lose income—a critical source for Acapulco’s financial economy. But not even extra security measures have been able to protect tourists. In February 2013, masked men broke into a luxury vacation home along a private beach and held twelve tourists hostage. At gunpoint, the criminals tied the men to chairs using phone cords and raped each of the six women for seven hours.
Although Acapulco is one of the world’s deadliest cities, it still remains a widely popular tourist destination. While millions of visitors travel safely, homicide, brutal violence, kidnapping, robbery, and cartel activity has made Acapulco one of the most beautiful and the second deadliest city on Earth.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. Have you ever been to Acapulco? If so, what was your experience like? If not, will Acapulco still be on your bucket list after reading this article?
I hope you enjoyed the first blog post in my series, "Deadliest Places on Earth." If you'd like to see more articles like this, please upvote and follow. Or, if you'd rather read all the articles now, copy and paste the link below where you'll be re-directed to the Amazon page. Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment.
Haunted Travels, my ghoulies! Another post comes tomorrow!