Mexico’s Attorney General announced that 12,456 people are known to have been killed in the country’s war on drugs this year alone, taking the figure to 30,196 since President Felipe Calderón took power in December 2006.

The figure is a steep rise on 2009 when 9,600 were killed in drug-related violence. Attorney General Arturo Chávez Chávez made the announcement at an end-of-year breakfast for the domestic and international press.

Mr Chávez was keen to point out successes in the government’s war against the cartels which has seen the capture and killing of many major leaders including most recently the head of La Familia, a violent cartel with a quasi-religious following.

The news comes days after the announcement that more than 3,000 people had died in the notorious US-border city of Ciudad Juarez this year.