It was not easy to read this report.  After all, the victims in this story are children.  This is from Jessica Guerrero over at Pulse News Mexico:

The constant climate of extreme violence in which Mexico has lived since the start of the so-called drug war in 2006 has left a huge red stain in the modern history of the country. 

From 2006 to 2021 alone, it is estimated that 350,000 people were killed in the country because of drug wars and power struggles between cartels and other organized crime groups, and at least 72,000 people have been missing since then, more than 30,000 of whom have disappeared during the last four years under the watch of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO).

This situation by itself has had a great impact on the quality of life of Mexicans, but it is especially the nation's children and adolescents who have had to bear witness to the most atrocious side of the violence generated by organized crime. Just under AMLO's administration alone, so far 4,090 minors have been murdered.

According to statistics, an average of seven children are killed under violent circumstances every day in Mexico, 70 percent of them by firearms. Such numbers even surpass those of Syria, which has been in a civil war since 2011.

The incidence of these murders is concentrated mainly in the states of Michoacán, Guanajuato, Tamaulipas, Jalisco and Zacatecas. The security conditions that these states face due to disputes between local criminal groups have favored the rise of violent crimes against Mexican children.

Why children?  As in Chicago, they are often at the wrong place at the wrong time.

What is the López-Obrador government doing about this?  So far nothing, as most of my Mexican friends tell me.  They are embracing something called "hugs not bullets" for cartels, or a dismal policy that projects weakness or a lack of interest in addressing the violence.  The criminal elements in Mexico look at the weak president and the chaos on the U.S.-Mexico border and have concluded that it's a good time to move drugs and people.

So the violence persists, and more children get killed when both sides pull the trigger.  It's a horrible story as many of us get ready to cheer the Christmas season with our families.  For many south of the border, there won't be a "Feliz Navidad" this year, and probably not one for a long time.

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Image: istolethetv.