U.S. State Department Issues Mexico Travel Warning
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - It's getting more difficult to find a safe place to travel in Mexico.
The U.S State Department expanded its warning of non-essential travel to 14 states in northern and central Mexico.
Their warning back in April included 10 Mexican states.
The State Department says that U.S. citizens have recently fallen victim to drug-cartel related activity "including homicide, gun battles and kidnapping." according to the State Department website.
The State Department says according to the most recent homicide figures published by the Mexican government, 47,515 people were killed in narcotics-related violence in Mexico between December 1, 2006 and September 30, 2011, with 12,903 narcotics-related homicides in the first nine months of 2011 alone.
While most of those killed in narcotics-related violence have been members of Transnational Criminal Organizations, innocent people have also been killed.
The number of U.S. citizens reported to the Department of State as murdered in Mexico increased from 35 in 2007 to 120 in 2011.
The Mexican states that have been listed in the warning include areas of Aguascalientes, Guerrero and Nayarit in central Mexico - and raises its advisory against non-essential travel to areas including Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Nuevo Leon, San Luis Potosi, Sinaloa and Zacatecas as well as Tamaulipas and Michoacan.
Get more travel warning information from the U.S. State Department website.
*Additional information for this article was obtained from the U.S. State Department website.
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