The international organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday that the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, “inherited a crisis” from her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024), due to the “extreme violence” of criminal groups and “abuses” of the State.

HRW in its annual report on Mexico, the association maintained that Sheinbaum, “who took office in October, inherited a human rights crisis created by the extreme violence of organized crime groups and widespread abuses committed by state agents with almost total impunity.”

“His predecessor, López Obrador, made little progress to face these challenges,” he said.

In addition, he warned that Congress approved constitutional reforms in September, the last month of López Obrador’s presidency, which expand the role of the military in public security and “radically” transform the Judiciary, which could “perpetuate abuses and seriously undermine the rule of law.”

The New York-based group said that the homicide rate “fell slightly for the third consecutive year” in 2023, to 24.9 per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 25.9 the previous year, but six cities had rates above 100 in 2022.

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Two out of three murders are committed by organized crime and, in the same proportion, firearms are used, of which 70% “arrive in Mexico through smuggling from the United States”.

Despite the “slight” reduction in homicides, “the number of reports of disappearances has increased,” said the association, which reported a total of more than 115,000 people missing in September, based on official figures.

“Many could have been killed and buried in the almost 5,700 clandestine graves that activists and authorities have discovered. Around 53,000 human remains were stored, waiting to be identified by the end of 2022,” the report noted.

HRW criticized López Obrador’s constitutional reform in September to remove the ban on soldiers from performing non-military functions in peacetime, give the Ministry of Defense control of the National Guard and empower the Executive to “deploy indefinitely” the Armed Forces.

In the last month of the previous government there were 232,761 soldiers, sailors and national guards deployed in the country, according to the report, which cited the death of almost 5,700 people in Army operations from 2007 to July 2024.

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“The military has obstructed investigations and criminal proceedings into human rights violations committed in the past,” HRW said.

The document also cited the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which in 2023 pointed out that “it remains a widespread practice in Mexico and is too often the catalyst for mistreatment, torture, enforced disappearance and arbitrary executions.”

About 37% of those in prison that year were not convicted of any crime and more than 20% of those in pre-trial detention had been in this situation for more than two years.

HRW also documented almost 830,000 arrests of migrants between January and July 2024, “the highest figure ever recorded,” while in the north of the country the Mexican authorities arrest about 10,000 a month, including some with an appointment in the United States, and send them to the south by bus.

Although there was a record of more than 140,000 asylum seekers in 2023, “the highest figure in history,” the Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid (Comar) resolved less than 26,000 requests.

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On the other hand, the association reiterated that “Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists and human rights defenders.”

Based on figures from the organization Article 19, there were 3,408 attacks or threats against journalists, 46 journalists killed and four missing from December 1, 2018 to March 31, 2024.

And in 2023, there were 14 murders of human rights defenders, according to the Cherry Committee, and 18 of environmental defenders, according to Global Witness.