Karachi's killing fields

 

Karachi, a sprawling metropolis in Pakistan’s south, is one of the world’s largest cities. Estimates put the city’s population at more than 14 million (with some claiming it is as high as 20 million), putting it just outside the top 10 largest urban agglomerations in the world, according to the UN .
Of the world’s 13 largest cities, Karachi is the most dangerous, according to data compiled by Al Jazeera.
Crime statistics gathered from governments, police departments and the UN show that Karachi has the highest homicide rate of the world's 13 largest cities, coming in at 12.3 per 100,000 residents. Karachites often brush off the particularly violent nature of their city as being a byproduct of living in any major urban area in the developing world. But Karachi is exceptional; amongst megacities (with populations of more than 13 million), no other city’s homicide rate comes within 25 per cent of Karachi’s.
Karachi’s murder rate is comparable to the Brazilian city of Sao Paolo’s in the mid-2000s, when it was wracked with violence linked to organised crime and drugs, and was widely regarded as one of the most dangerous cities in the world. But Karachi’s story, a mix of crime (organised and otherwise) and political violence , remains largely unheard.