Internal Forced Displacement in Mexico: A Case of Migration Due to Violence

Uriel Lomelí-Carrillo

Mexico does not have data or an official diagnosis on internal forced displacement due to violence. In 2006, ethnographic evidence has documented the armed conflict in the country - the War on Drugs - as the main cause of the internal forced displacement crisis. According to the National Human Rights Commission, between 2012 and 2014, Guerrero, Michoacán, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas and Chiapas were the states with the highest number of cases of internally displaced persons. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center suggests a causal link between violence and displacement in the affected states and municipalities. This paper analyzes the evidence on homicide rates - as a proxy for violence - and intra state migration rates - as a proxy for internal displacement - for the municipalities in the state of Guerrero through the spatial and temporal analysis of both variables. A strong relationship was found for the period 2000-2015.

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 Presented in Session 7. Migration & Urbanization