PERSPECTIVE: Mexico’s drug-war death toll in 2016 reportedly exceeded murder levels in many countries mired in war.

With nearly 23,000 intentional homicides in 2016, Mexico’s murder tally was second only to war-torn Syria’s 60,000, said Antonio Sampaio, one of the authors of the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ “Armed Conflict Survey 2017.”

The report deals a blow to to President Enrique Peña Nieto’s efforts to end Mexico’s deadly drug war, which has dragged on for more than a decade.

Iraq had roughly 17,000 murders, while Afghanistan had 16,000 last year, Sampaio added, noting that Mexico’s militarized drug battle increasingly resembles an armed conflict.

Good lord.