Armed Conflicts Casualties 2012: Mexico Places Second Behind Syria

A new study of war casualties in 2012 has placed Mexico second only to Syria in the number of deaths reported last year. The study from a think tank in Geneva, Switzerland, reported that a total 95,000 people died last year as a result of armed conflicts, most of whom were civilians. Syria had the highest number of deaths at 55,000 while Mexico came second with 9,000 and Afghanistan third with 7,500. Hundreds of thousands more were injured in conflicts around the world.

The report was launched on Tuesday by the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, a joint programme of the Graduate Institute and the University of Geneva. The report found that despite the high number of civilian casualties, Mexico, like Turkey and Thailand, does not recognize itself as being involved in an armed conflict. Moreover, few charges have been laid for the atrocities around the world because there is a lack of agreement over what constitutes and armed conflict in the Geneva Conventions.

One of the central preoccupations of the report was finding a new criteria through which acts of war could be classified as armed conflicts, giving greater accountability for such occurrences. "It is not always clear when a situation is an armed conflict, and hence when war crimes can be punished," said Andrew Clapham, Director of the Academy and Graduate Institute Professor in International Law.

The report comes on the back of information released by Human Rights Watch which found little to no progress in President Enrique Peña Nieto's fight against Mexico's human rights abuses. In fact, Proceso magazine found that in the first 11 months of Peña Nieto's presidency, the number of murders has risen in comparison to the last few months of Felipe Calderon's term.