Bulgaria had fourth-highest murder rate in EU in 2015 – Eurostat
Among EU countries, Bulgaria had the fourth-highest number of intentional homicide victims as a proportion of its population in 2015, statistics agency Eurostat said on February 22.
Per 100 000 inhabitants, there were 1.79 homicide victims in Bulgaria, that year. In absolute terms, the figure was 129 people.
This was higher than in 2014, when 116 people were murdered in Bulgaria, and 2013, when there were 103 murder victims.
Almost 5000 victims of intentional homicide were recorded by the police in the EU in 2015, Eurostat said.
Among the EU member states for which the data are available, police in France recorded the highest number of intentional homicide victims in 2015 in absolute terms (1017 people or 21 per cent of all intentional homicide victims recorded in the EU), followed at a distance by Germany (682 or 14 per cent), Poland (530 or 11 per cent) and Italy (469 or 10 per cent). However, relative to population size, these countries do not have the highest numbers in the EU.
Relative to its population, Lithuania recorded the highest number, with 5.89 intentional homicide victims per 100 000 inhabitants, ahead of Latvia (3.37), Estonia (3.19), Bulgaria (1.79) and Cyprus (1.77).
The lowest number of intentional homicide victims relative to population was recorded in Austria (0.51 intentional homicide victim per 100 000 inhabitants), the Netherlands (0.62), Spain (0.65), the Czech Republic (0.75) and Italy (0.77).
(Photo: Bart Groenhuizen/sxc.hu)
