2023-10-07 07:24:54
In September 2023, the murder figures in Costa Rica exceeded the historical records of the Central American country.
The Congress of Costa Rica, including the ruling party, approved this Thursday (05/10/2023) a motion in which it asks the Government to declare a national emergency due to the insecurity situation that is reflected in the highest number of homicides in the history of the country.
The motion was approved by 44 congressmen present in the Plenary this Thursday, in a day that has been marked by the shooting of an agent of the Judicial Investigation Organization (OIJ) while he was carrying out a covert surveillance operation.
“It is time for the Executive to comply with a concrete action plan in the face of the problem we have of insecurity,” said the opposition deputy. Christian Social Unity PartyHoracio Alvarado, whose bench was the one that promoted the motion.
On September 22, Costa Rica reached 655 homicides, a figure that exceeded that of all of 2022 (654 homicides), which was the highest number in the history of the country with a rate of 12.6 per 100,000 inhabitants.
The data indicates that, as of September 22, 2022, 448 homicides were recorded, which means that in 2023 there has been an increase of 46.2%.
The authorities attribute most of the homicides to the dispute over territories between drug trafficking gangs and project that by the end of 2023 the figure will exceed 800 homicides.
The alarms among the authorities were raised even more this Thursday after the OIJ agent Géiner Gómez was murdered on the night of October 4 while carrying out covert surveillance work in the town of Tirrases de Curridabat, in the eastern sector of San José. .
For this incident, two men, ages 17 and 21, were arrested on suspicion of shooting from a motorcycle and murdering the judicial officer and seriously injuring another.
This crime generated the reaction of the director of the OIJ, Randall Zúñiga, and the attorney general, Carlo Díaz, who asked for more economic and human resources to confront the wave of crime.
«The issue is serious, terrible. We must do something to change conditions. It cannot be that situations like these are being normalized,” declared Zúñiga, who demanded “a clear guideline in the sense of helping the police forces.”
Costa Rica, a country that has not had an Army since 1948, entrusts its security to the police forces. On October 3, there was a meeting between the president of Costa Rica, Rodrigo Chaves, and high judicial authorities in order to analyze the situation, but no specific agreement was announced.
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