Security & Strategic Review - July 2024

Speaking at a press conference on 5 June, Uruguay’s President Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou recognised that there is “huge concern” in government about the country’s murder rate. The president made these comments after journalists questioned him about a high-profile shootout the previous week, prompting him to admit, in his final year in office, with general elections due in October, that his government has struggled to significantly reduce homicides since the figure peaked in 2018.