Mexico beats grim record for monthly murder tolls

June was the most murderous month Mexico has seen in at least two decades, official statistics showed, underlining authorities' powerlessness to check a growing wave of violence.

Last month saw 2,234 murders, up from 2,191 in May, according to the executive secretariat of the National Public Security System.

Those numbers are at a level unseen since 1997, when Mexico started collating homicides.

The data come from figures supplied by local prosecutors investigating killings and reporting them to federal agencies.

The first half of this year was especially bloody.

In those six months, a total 12,155 murder cases were opened, a 30 percent increase over the same period in 2016.

The states of Guerrero, a drug cartel-prone territory in the south, and Mexico, surrounding the capital's federal district, recorded the highest numbers.

Violence in Mexico has increased in the past 10 years as the government wages a security offensive against organized crime. Over that decade, 186,000 deaths have been registered.