Last year, Mexico recorded 33,308 murders, marking a 3.6% decrease compared with 2020, in a country long plagued by drug cartel violence and US arms flow into the country, official figures showed Thursday.

Homicides were on a "downward trend,” Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodriguez said after the second consecutive annual improvement.

Murders hit 34,690 in 2019, the highest on record, before dropping slightly to 34,554 in 2020.

Since 2006, Mexico has recorded more than 340,000 murders, according to official figures.

Gangs fighting for control of lucrative routes for smuggling drugs, migrants, and stolen fuel often seek to intimidate their rivals by leaving dead bodies hanging from bridges or dumped in public places.

Some types of crimes -- including extortion, rape, and certain kinds of robberies -- have been on the rise, Rodriguez said.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had a vision that maintaining social welfare decreases crime. That is why when he took office in 2018, he adopted a strategy of "hugs not bullets" to tackle violent crime by fighting poverty and inequality with social programs, rather than with the army, according to AFP.

Other factors might have taken part in the likely drop in murders in the country. One of these factors But other is people isolating during the Covid-19 pandemic, said Francisco Rivas, head of the National Citizen Observatory civil society group.

"The reality is that Mexico is going through one of its worst times in terms of violence," he said.

In addition to those murdered, tens of thousands of Mexicans have gone missing in recent decades "and probably many of them have lost their lives and are in a clandestine grave," Rivas added.

Earlier, following a number of shooting in Mexico, the Mexican Foreign Minister said his country has filed lawsuits against the top US arms manufacturing companies in a federal court in Boston. 

The main goal, according to Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, is to get the companies that are being sued to compensate the Mexican government for the damages caused by their practices.

Mexico says that the US arms-producing companies were aware of the damage they were inflicting on Mexico.

It is worth mentioning that Mexican security services confiscated during their operations more than 9 thousand weapons in 2020, most of which are made in the US.