UNITED NATIONS, July 8 (Xinhua) -- Some 464,000 people across the world were victims of homicidal violence in 2017, more than five times the number killed in armed conflict over the same period, a UN study said Monday.

According to a study by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Central America is the most dangerous region to live, where the number of homicides -- or unlawful killings -- rises in some "hotspots," to 62.1 per 100,000 people.

The safest locations are in Asia, Europe and Oceania (Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia), where murder rates are 2.3, 3.0 and 2.8 respectively -- well below the 6.1 global average, the UN agency's Global Study on Homicide 2019 shows.

At 13.0, Africa's homicide rate was lower than the Americas (17.2), which had the highest percentage in 2017 since reliable data-gathering began in 1990, UNODC said, while also pointing to significant data gaps for some African countries.

Although the UNODC study shows that the number of homicides increased from almost 400,000 in 1992 to more than 460,000 in 2017, it explains that the actual global rate has declined (from 7.2 in 1992, to 6.1 in 2017) when measured against population growth. Enditem

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