The contrast is absolute. After 2024 in which crimes were reduced by more than 50 percent, A wave of violence returned to Santa Fe. Between the departments of Rosario and La Capital, the two with the largest number of inhabitants, there were nine homicides in the first week of the year. A warning signal goes on.
“Just as we didn’t celebrate prematurely when homicides dropped last year, We should not be unnecessarily alarmed by the ups and downs,” asked provincial Security Minister Pablo Cococcioni. And he concluded: “The essential thing is to continue with the investigative and preventive work.”
Opposites.
The violent start to 2025 draws even more attention from Santa Fe residents after the drastic drop in homicides the previous year. According to statistics from the Public Security Observatory, the province closed 2024 with 176 crimes, the lowest figure in the last decade. 55.8% less compared to 2023.
The decline was noted, above all, in Rosario, where there were 90 murders, 65% less than the previous year. That figure was announced both by the province and by Patricia Bullrich’s Security portfolio. The minister and Governor Maximiliano Pullaro worked together and in good harmony, at least until the end of 2024. Some details cooled the relationship.
A video threat they received together in December, from a group of suspected narcoterrorists, began to show some disagreements. The province did not want to give it entity and the ministry made it a central issue.
The disagreement was noted again shortly before Christmas, when Bullrich rushed to inaugurate the Coronda Federal Prison, which would only be operational in March. The local mayor reported that, due to lack of prisoners, they transferred detainees from Marcos Paz for the minister to do a staging that she later uploaded to her networks. Pullaro did not want to participate in the event. “We had scheduling problems,” they excused themselves.
Now, after showing the drop in crime figures, someone will have to take charge of a fierce start to the year. For now, the Nation did not talk about the issue. In the province they ask not to draw premature conclusions: they trust that the wave will pass and the situation will be channeled.
This time, the crimes have a special seasoning. Beyond what happened in the first week of the year in Rosario, where there is structural violence that is being attempted to be dismantled, the beginning of 2025 in the La Capital department is surprising.
With half the inhabitants of Rosario, Santa Fe city and its surroundings had one more homicide in the first days of the year: five in total. The most surprising, due to its characteristics, was a dismembered body wrapped in a sheet, found outside the Hippodrome.
The efforts of the governments, the national one and that of Santa Fe, are focused on consolidating the downward crime statistics in 2025. But the beginning of the year is going against its objective.
