The number of homicides in Rosario decreased during the first six months of government

Statistics show that in the first 180 days of the new government in the province of Santa Fe, the number of homicides decreased abruptly throughout the territory, but especially in the Rosario department, which in recent times had its capital city as ‘the capital of crime and violence’. Between December 10, 2023 and June 10, 2024, 63 crimes were recorded (52 of them this year) against 153 in the same number of days, but a year ago (142 in 2024).

According to sources from the province’s Ministry of Security, the decrease is due to various factors, including the greater police presence in the territory, which includes the reinforcement of patrols in different areas and times; the joint work with federal forces and the actions carried out in prisons, where the detention conditions of the so-called high-profile prisoners were restricted.

“The diagnosis we had before taking office was that the crime and violence in Santa Fe was being managed from within the prisons,” highlighted the Secretary of Information Analysis and Management of the Ministry of Security, Esteban Santantino. Given this, “the Police, with greater efficiency, were able to recover the street. And complex criminal investigations are once again the way the Province works,” he added.

According to the report, so far this year a total of 52 homicides have been committed in the Rosario department (17 in January, 7 in February, 11 in March, 9 in April and 8 in May). The figures are notably lower than those recorded in the same number of days in the last 10 years.

These same statistics show that in 2014, 125 crimes were committed; in 2015 there were 112; in 2016, 93; in 2017, 73; in 2018, 96; in 2019, 79, in 2020, 83 (beginning of the pandemic); in 2021, 109; in the year 2022, 126 (considered the most violent year in history in the Rosario department) and in the year 2023, a total of 142.

But although this notable decrease must be highlighted, it must not be forgotten that threats to institutions, homes, officials and service stations continue to occur; multiple attacks that leave people injured by firearms and extortions and shootings at schools, businesses, and private homes, carried out mostly by shooters or gunmen to whom we have given (from journalism) the title of hitmen.

Although the number of victims has decreased, those people who claim to be the owners of life and death continue to sow the streets with bullets and served shells and leaving a trail of fatalities also on a material and spiritual level.

This is how the families of Eugenia Toloza (31 years old) feel, murdered with a knife on January 6 of this year in French 6400, in the Empalme Graneros neighborhood; or that of María Mercedes Antelo (45 years old), who was housed in the Order (Rosario Detainee Reception Office) and died 4 days later as a result of multiple burns on her body; or that of Susana Haydée Mena (27 years old), whose body was found inside a bag, in a home located near Magaldi 8900, Los Gráficos neighborhood, on January 11.

The family and friends of Ramón de la Cruz Navarro (55), shot dead on January 15 at 3400 Seguí Boulevard, in the Alvear neighborhood, also suffer their loss. Ana María Martínez (42) and Juan Ramón Flores (49), killed at shots in a house in Spiro at 300 bis, in the Villa Manuelita neighborhood, southeast of Rosario. Or Tamara Marionsini (53), killed by blows and stab wounds along with her partner, Silvio Martini (65).

Other victims were José Luis Assale (63) and Carlos Uriel Acosta (21), shot to death in the vicinity of Chacabuco and Dr. Riva, Tablada neighborhood, on February 13, or Ayelén Emilce Angélica De Marco (32), shot dead in the skull in his house in Gutiérrez in 1900, in the Las Delicias neighborhood.

More victims: Sharon Almada (18 years old), shot dead on March 4 in Forest at 7600, Belgrano Oeste. And the saga that once again put Rosario at the center of the scene of violence: The taxi drivers Héctor Raúl Figueroa (43) shot dead in Flammarion at 5100, on March 5 and Diego Alejandro Celentano (38) died a day later in Marcelo T. de Alvear y Garmendia; the bus driver Marcos Daloia (39) injured on March 7 on the corner of Mendoza and Méjico, in the Belgrano neighborhood (he died 3 days later) and Bruno Nicolás Bussanich (25) who died on the night of March 9 at a service station located in Mendoza at 7600, after receiving a shot in the skull.

Furthermore, in April there were at least 4 fatalities within less than 100 meters: Leonardo Rodrigo Contreras (23 years old) and Daniel Pacheco (22), shot to death on the 16th of the fourth month of the year in Cavia and Ghiraldo (La Esperanza neighborhood); Claudio Barrionuevo (38) died on that same corner 3 days later and Matías Alberto Coria (35), who died on April 30 after being shot in the skull, in the vicinity of Cavia and Larrechea (less than 100 meters from the another crime scene in La Esperanza neighborhood).

In May there were 8 murders, including the double femicide recorded on a street in the Alvear neighborhood, where Dalma Giuliana García, 19, and Julieta Gaitán, 22, died. To that list is added a third femicide in May, that of Adriana Claudia Luna (57 years old), whose body was found with several blows inside her home, located at Víctor Mercante 500, in the Sarmiento neighborhood, north of the most important city in the Rosario department.

There are fewer victims than a year ago, than two years ago, than five years ago, but they do not stop appearing.