The database released today by the Mexican Attorney General’s office shows 12,903 people were murdered in Mexico in drug-war related violence in the first nine months of 2011.  That brings the official total up to 47,515 – without counting the final three months of last year.

The border metropolis of Ciudad Juárez continued to rank as Mexico’s deadliest city, with more than 1,206 murders. The coastal resort and port city of Acapulco registered nearly 795 murders in the nine-month period.

Data also showed an increase in violence in some rural areas – most notably in the states of Guerrero and Tamaulipas. April 2011 ranks as the deadliest month on record, with 1,630 confirmed murder victims; hundreds of whom were found in mass graves.

Some observations and analysis tweeted as I read the database for the first time (will re-format this section later)

A single massacre on Monday in Zitácuaro, Michoacán exceeds the total number of dead registered in a 9 month period in the same town.

Others have noted the spike in homicides in Acapulco, #Guerrero. The increase in murders in rural parts of the state is also significant.

Data shows Torreón had an especially violent year as well. Triple digit death tolls in Durango in April-May seem to be from the mass graves.

Newspaper estimates generally put the death toll for Monterrey at far higher than the 399 noted in the new database. Why? Counting suburbs?

As was to be expected, the highest death tolls attributed to the #DrugWar in Oaxaca occurred in Tuxtepec & Loma Bonita (near Veracruz line).

Aside about Oaxaca: the homicide data in the new PGR database doesn’t include murders in the Triqui region or the massacre in Choapam (Mixe)

Officially in #Tamaulipas: San Fernando 292 (many in mass graves), Nuevo Laredo 144, Valle Hermoso 95, Matamoros 72, Tampico 63, Reynosa 51.

Aside on Tamaulipas: Tiny Ciudad Mier registered 50 murders from Jan-Sept30th 2011; just 1 less than those documented in the city of Reynosa

As with Zitácuaro, Michoacán…a single massacre of 31 people this month in Altamira, Tamaulipas exceeded the 9 month total in the database.

There’s also been an increase in murders in #Veracruz state, esp in Veracruz (port city), Boca del Rio, & Panuco. Where’s Acayucan’s data?

Database total of 12,903 murders in 9months= monthly average of 1434 murders. A total of 17K+ for all 2011 seems like a probable projection.

While *official* documentation shows 47K+ #DrugWar deaths in Mexico Dec06-Sept11, using monthly averages to fill in Oct-Dec = more than 50K.

More #DrugWar database math: 12,903 murders in the first 9 months (273 days) of 2011 comes to an average of 47 homicides a day.

Armed men attacked three buses in northern Veracruz Thursday, killing at least eleven passengers. According to the state government, five assailants were killed when the military arrived at the scene of an attack. Some early reports cited a regional mayor estimating a death toll as high as forty victims.

The US Consulate in Matamoros has issued a warning to US citizens to use caution when travelling in Veracruz and recommends only traveling during the day. The same bulletin reiterated long-standing advice that U.S. citizens “defer non-essential travel to the state of Tamaulipas”.

Highways in the states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz, and San Luis Potosi have become notoriously dangerous, with criminals taking advantage of the cover of night to hold up passenger buses and private vehicles.

The main highways in northern Veracruz are connected to the port city of Tampico, just across the state line in Tamaulipas. The most dangerous roads in Tamaulipas lead to the border bridges with South Texas.

The bodies of ten murder victims were dumped in the Veracruz town of Tampico Alto this morning. Like the multi-homicide targeting the buses, the specific motive for the violence is unclear, but the perpetrators are assumed to be associated with organized crime operating in the region.

As has been the case with Tamaulipas, much of the violence in Veracruz is occurring under a mantle of fear-induced silence. The press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders this week named Veracruz one of the ten deadliest regions in the world for journalists.

Also this week, 900 police officers in the port city of Veracruz and its nearby suburb of Boca del Rio were dismissed and replaced by soldiers in what authorities describe as an anti-corruption measure.

Seventeen people, including children, were taken from their homes by a group of armed men in the community of Cerro Verde in the southern state of Guerrero. The mass abduction occurred in the early hours of December 11th but has only recently become public after a relative decided to file a police report in a district outside of the one in which the crime occurred.

Those kidnapped belong to three families linked to a regional environmental movement known as the Organization of Ecologist Farmers. Two leaders of this organization, Eva Alarcon and Marcial Bautista, were abducted earlier this month as they traveled aboard a passenger bus on their way to a meeting in Mexico City.

The daughters of the two kidnapped organizers held a press conference in Mexico City Tuesday begging the kidnappers to negotiate and to return their parents alive.

Twenty four local police and four state level detectives have been arrested in connection to the federal investigation into the case.

The whereabouts of the abducted environmental activists and their relatives remains unknown.

Ten bodies have been removed from a new mass grave which was found in Durango last Wednesday by Mexican soldiers. The discovery was made public Monday when state authorities in Durango said they were performing forensic tests to establish the identities of those buried in the pit.

More than 280 bodies have been discovered in mass graves around Durango since April. Many of the bodies were found in an advanced state of decomposition and state investigators were criticized for allegedly mishandling evidence. Only ten percent of the bodies have been identified.

A February 2010 US diplomatic cable published by Wikileaks described Durango as “the state unraveling most rapidly” – a strong statement in the context of the drug war related violence that has been wracking northern Mexico for years.

Two students from the “Isidro Burgos” rural teaching academy in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero were shot dead during a protest in southern Mexico yesterday. Around 500 students from the school blocked part of the Autopista del Sol highway to demand a meeting with the Governor Angel Aguirre Rivero. By the time police took control of the highway, two students were lying dead on the asphalt.

The victims were identified as 20 year-old Gabriel Echeverría de Jesús and 21 year-old Jorge Alexis Herrera Pino. The student organization behind the protests stated a third student, Edgar David Espíritu, died Monday night. However, at the time of this writing, Espíritu is reportedly alive but in a coma.

State authorities initially denied police shot at protesters, but a video released by Milenio TV shows a man in plainclothes firing a high caliber rifle from a police line in the direction of the protests. The police in video made no attempt to stop or apprehend the gunman.

La Jornada published a photo today showing plainclothes police with high caliber rifles at the scene of protest in Chilpancingo. El Universal also published video of plain clothes police armed with rifles.

Students mobilized on Monday to pressure the governor to appear at a budget negotiation meeting that had been cancelled and postponed for months.

In addition to the killings, at least 20 people were arrested. At least one has been released with serious facial bruising. The Tlachinollan Human Rights Center, which is providing legal counsel to some of the detained, stated a 19 year-old claimed he was tortured into making a false confession about firing a rifle during the protest.

Tuesday afternoon, Guerrero’s governor announced the dismissals of the state attorney general and the state police chief and his deputy.

Mexico’s system of rural academies (the Normales Rurales) was set up to train children of marginalized small farmers to become teachers in rural communities. The schools have been hard hit by budget cuts and reduced enrolment opportunities over the past 10 years.