World's 20 most dangerous cities revealed

Research looks at cities which were not at war and were populated by more than 300,000 people

A non-governmental organisation Mexican Citizens' Council for Public Security and Criminal has found that the world’s most violent city is Caracas in Venezuela.



"Narcotics are the biggest black market earner of all. Estimated to be worth more than three hundred billion dollars a year, the global industry has pumped huge resources into criminal empires decade after decade," wrote Ioan Grillo, the author of "Gangster Warlords: Drug Dollars, Killing Fields, and the New Politics of Latin America."

The list in the NGO’s annual report includes 50 cities, of which, 32 were South American, 13 were from elsewhere in the Americas, four were South African and the other was Kingston, Jamaica.



The results can be explained by drug trafficking supplemented with gang wars, political instability, and the deregulation of economies triggering widespread poverty.

"So that amount of money, $100 billion a year, 10 years, a trillion dollars, 30 years, $3 trillion. That amount of money pumps in these organisations ... buying more guns, paying more assassins, bribing more police, bribing more politicians ... and that is why the region right now, Latin American and the Caribbean, are at a boiling point," Grillo told the Business Insider.

The only city in the top-ten, outside Latin America was Cape Town. San Salvador, El Salvador saw the highest increase in violence in a year, rising from 61.21 in 2014 to 111.03 in 2015.



The council's ranking contains cities with populations of more than 300,000 and does not count deaths in combat zones or cities with unavailable data, so some dangerous cities may not be represented on the list.

The top twenty is as follows:

20. Barquisimeto, Venezuela had 54.96 homicides per 100,000 residents.

19. Baltimore, Maryland, United States had 54.98 homicides per 100,000 residents.

18. Maceio, Brazil had 55.63 homicides per 100,000 residents.

17. Culiacan, Mexico had 56.09 homicides per 100,000 residents.

16. João Pessoa, Brazil had 58.40 homicides per 100,000 residents.

15. St. Louis, Missouri, United States had 59.23 homicides per 100,000 residents.

14. Salvador, Brazil had 60.63 homicides per 100,000 residents.

13. Natal, Brazil had 60.66 homicides per 100,000 residents.

12. Fortaleza, Brazil had 60.77 homicides per 100,000 residents.

11. Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela had 62.33 homicides per 100,000 residents.

10. Cali, Colombia had 64.27 homicides per 100,000 residents.

9. Cape Town, South Africa had 65.53 homicides per 100,000 residents.

8. Palmira, Colombia had 70.88 homicides per 100,000 residents.

7. Valencia, Venezuela had 72.31 homicides per 100,000 residents.

6. Distrito Central, Honduras had 73.51 homicides per 100,000 residents.

5. Maturin, Venezuela had 86.45 homicides per 100,000 residents.

4. Acapulco, Mexico had 104.73 homicides per 100,000 residents.

3. San Salvador, El Salvador had 108.54 homicides per 100,000 residents.

2. San Pedro Sula, Honduras had 111.03 homicides per 100,000 residents.

1. Caracas, Venezuela had 119.87 homicides per 100,000 residents.

This article originally appeared on Independent.