MEXICO'S volatile border city of Ciudad Juarez has the world's highest murder rate, followed by Caracas, Venezuela and the US city of New Orleans.

Ciudad Juarez - the scene of regular and brutal score-settling between rival drug gangs - has 130 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, the Citizen's Council for Public Security said.

Caracas has 96 murders per 100,000 inhabitants and New Orleans registers 95, the Mexican non-governmental organisation said, basing its figures on media and FBI reports.

Caracas was listed as the murder capital of the world in the September 2008 Foreign Policy magazine, quoting official figures of 130 murders per 100,000 inhabitants.

The Mexican NGO put another Mexican border city, Tijuana, in fourth place with 73.

Cape Town, South Africa, was fifth with 62, and Baghdad, Iraq, is in 10th position with 40 murders per 100,000 inhabitants.

In Ciudad Juarez, 1362 people have been murdered so far this year up to August 21 as violence spirals among powerful cartels fighting for control of lucrative drug routes into the United States.

The deployment of 8500 troops in the border city - part of a nationwide crackdown involving more than 36,000 troops - has failed to quell the violence.

Would you go to Baghdad for a holiday? Probably not, but tens of thousands of people will go to South Africa to see the World Cup in 2010 which will place them in a city with a higher murder rate than Baghdad...better of watching it on TV!

The Top? Ten:

1. Ciudad Juarez
2. Caracaz, Venezuela
3. New Orleans, United States
4. Tijuana, Mexico
5. Cape Town, South Africa
6. Port Moresby, Paua New Guinea
7. San Salvador, El Salvador
8. Medelin, Colombia
9. Baltimore, United States
10. Baghdad, Iraq


Source; The Daily Telegraph