Minister of Home Affairs Responds to Recent Spike in Murders

Five murders have been reported in the last ten days, a concerning increase for the Belize Police Department and the Ministry of Home Affairs. Today, we caught up with Minister Kareem Musa in Belize City, where we asked him about the recent spike in violent crimes and what the police are doing to mitigate these incidents. Here is what he told reporters.

Kareem Musa

Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs

“It is very scary the world we live in today Daniel and it is certainly not just limited to Belize. You look across the region; Jamaica is facing extreme violent crimes happening in their society, Salvador, other parts of Central America. So, there is this sort of uptick worldwide of crime, even in the great United States. So, it is very concerning when it comes to young people, the young man that lost his life the other day. I want to extend my condolences to him as well as the other individuals who lost their lives over the past ten days. I know that for the months of august and September we had a very relatively low violent crime situation in Belize. We are thankful for that. We are thankful for the Police Department and the hard work they put in over the September Celebrations. Of course, citizens on a whole, I know that there were celebrations everywhere, in every town, in every village, in every district, and for us to have relatively good and safe celebrations that is a positive thing. However, we are of course concerned with these latest murders; these are out district, the last five in the last ten days. And, those are a little easier to solve. I think out of the five murders we have four suspects that we are looking at. One has already been charged in the instance with Mr. Timmons in Orange Walk. We do have other suspects detained. From a police standpoint, that is what is important to us to be able to solve these crimes.”