"Mexico is facing a crisis of violence against children. According to the Network for the Rights of Children in Mexico (REDIM), more than 26,000 children have been killed in the last decade. Civil society organisation Causa en Comun describes these crimes as 'atrocities', extreme acts of violence targeting vulnerable populations. Footage filmed on August 20 shows a street in Mexico City’s Anahuac neighbourhood cordoned off by police, where a recent infanticide took place. Forensic teams collect evidence while neighbours watch from a distance. Esequiel Vargas Caballero, who witnessed the crime, denounced the lack of security: "Look at what is happening here: a young girl, an infanticide; a little girl, and they have just taken her life. So there is no security; no matter how much they say there are police, it is all a lie." Likewise, Vargas compared the current lack of protection for minors in Mexico City: "Before, a child could go to the shop on the corner and nothing happened. Now, almost at the door of their house, they are assaulted and hurt. There is no security anymore." According to Causa en Comun, press monitoring has identified 131 cases of minor deaths so far this year, while official figures put the number at 454. "We have a large number of atrocities related to minors who are killed by close relatives… There is no institutional structure that can actually provide care for children who are victims of violence," researcher Nancy Angelica Canjura Luna said in an interview on Tuesday. The increase in infanticide cases has caused national concern and highlighted, according to experts, the failure of state institutions to provide adequate protection for children in Mexico. Infanticide is reportedly a difficult crime to quantify, due to factors such as underreporting, changes in social attitudes, and the difficulty in distinguishing it from other causes of infant death. It is plausible that poverty, violence, and the need to hide births could all contribute to instances of infanticide."