The government of Trinidad and Tobago has declared a state of emergency over an unprecedented crime wave as violence surges across the Caribbean, partly fuelled by weapons from the US.
Police advised the dual-island nation’s security council of “heightened criminal activity which endangers public safety”, the prime minister’s office said on Monday.
Trinidad and Tobago, a fuel and chemicals exporter, has experienced its highest number of murders on record this year, with 623 among the population of 1.5mn. In 2022, the country’s homicide rate was 39.5 murders per 100,000 people, among the region’s highest, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.