That means one person was killed every 20 minutes in May.
"This is the overwhelming and absolute failure of [Mexican President Enrique] Peña Nieto's public safety policy," Mexican security analyst Alejandro Hope told Buzzfeed, referencing the president’s move to crack down on drug cartels, a policy some blame for increased violence in the country.
Some experts say that the leadership gap created by the capture of Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman caused a violent factional rift in the syndicate’s territory.
The state of Sinaloa saw 184 murders in May alone, including the broad daylight shooting of Javier Valdez, a veteran journalist known for his coverage of organized crime.
Prosecutor Juan Jose Rios called Valdez’s death "an attack on independent journalism not just in Sinaloa, but in Mexico as a whole."
"The recent return to 2011 murder rates is a symbolic moment," noted an international study on countries engaged in armed conflict released by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. "President Enrique Peña Nieto started his administration promising a less militarized approach to the fight against drug cartels, a step away from the 'war on drugs' strategy.
"Peña Nieto is nowhere near fulfilling his original plan of reducing the military presence on the streets. On the contrary, the go-to solution to the recurrent security crisis has been the dispatch of federal forces, frequently military ones, in place of inefficient, badly equipped and often corrupt local police forces."
The study suggested that the president’s policy helped make Mexico one of the most violent countries in the world, second only to Syria.
Mexico City refuted slammed the IISS report as "incorrect," saying in a statement that, "The existence of criminal groups is not a sufficient criterion to speak of a non-international armed conflict. Neither is the use of the Armed Forces to maintain order in the country's interior."
Pouncing on an opportunity to bring out some of his more divisive campaign rhetoric, US President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter, "Mexico was just ranked the second deadliest country in the world, after only Syria. Drug trade is largely the cause. We will BUILD THE WALL!"
