A MAN became the country’s 89th murder victim on Saturday after police found him unresponsive with a gunshot wound on the roof of an unfinished home around 7am.

He was found in the Kennedy subdivision.

Police offered few details about the death.

National Security Minister Wayne Munroe noted in the House of Assembly last week that murders are up 13 percent this year compared to last year. He said police statistics show a 19 percent decrease in attempted murders and a 26 percent decrease in armed robberies.

He said a new programme, HYPE, is being introduced in primary schools to disrupt the journey some young men take toward becoming murderers.

He highlighted a troubling trend of juvenile males aged 14 to 16 committing murders in The Bahamas, warning that “unless you decrease the number of murderers, you will not decrease the number of murders”.

He noted during the opening ceremony of the Bahamas Inter-Institutional Roundtable Meetings of the Caribbean Firearms Roadmap that 90 percent of murders in the last five years were committed with a firearm.

“Despite The Bahamas not manufacturing firearms, the use of illicit firearms as the main weapon of choice in homicides, youth violence, armed robberies and other serious crimes against the person is alarming,” he said.

He highlighted recent data indicating that over five years, about 90 percent of homicides in The Bahamas involved firearms. 

He noted that similar trends are evident across the Caribbean, with the Small Arms Survey (2023) showing that firearms are used in 70 percent of all homicides in the region. 

This rate, he pointed out, is significantly higher than the global average of 30 percent, which is particularly alarming given that the Caribbean accounts for less than one percent of the world’s population.