NY Times-Venezuela Is Deadlier Than Iraq

Funeral in Venezuela: Meridith Kohut/NY Times

(Story reported by Simon Romero for the NY Times)

CARACAS, Venezuela — Some here joke that they might be safer if they lived in Baghdad. The numbers bear them out. 

In Iraq, a country with about the same population as Venezuela, there were 4,644 civilian deaths from violence in 2009, according to Iraq Body Count; in Venezuela that year, the number of murders climbed above 16,000.

Even Mexico’s infamous drug war has claimed fewer lives.

Venezuelans have absorbed such grim statistics for years. Those with means have hidden their homes behind walls and hired foreign security experts to advise them on how to avoid kidnappings and killings. And rich and poor alike have resigned themselves to living with a murder rate that the opposition says remains low on the list of the government’s priorities. 

(Click here to read the full story on the NY Times website)