Homicides said at "alarming" levels in Venezuela

Venezuela's El Universal newspaper gave on 7 March the figure of 2,841 homicides across Venezuela for the first two months of 2014, citing unofficial and unspecified sources of the state criminal investigation agency CICPC. The daily observed this was 265 criminal killings more than the 2,576 reported for the same months in 2013. Venezuela and its capital have some of the world's highest crime rates, though the Government has increasingly restricted the revelation of crime statistics. The newspaper 2001 reported on 8 March that "at least" 92 bodies had been taken to the main Caracas morgue, Bello Monte, in the first seven days of March. The figure is taken as an indicator of the number of criminal or violent deaths occurring in the Caracas Metropolitan District.