CNN
—

Trinidad and Tobago has declared a state of emergency after a spate of killings over the weekend added to an already exceptionally deadly year for the Caribbean nation.

Under emergency powers announced by Prime Minister Keith Rowley’s office on Monday, police will be able to search people and premises without a warrant and detain suspects for up to 48 hours, preventing what the leader called “unacceptably high levels of searches.” of violent crime.”

However, there will be no curfew.

The approval came after several people were killed in gun violence over the weekend, bringing the country’s murder toll to 623 in 2024 – the highest in police records from 2013.

According to the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), Trinidad and Tobago, with a population of 1.5 million, already has one of the highest murder rates in the Caribbean, alongside Jamaica and Haiti, while violent deaths in the region are almost three times the global average .

And police expect the number of gang-related violent crimes involving powerful assault weapons to increase.

Acting Attorney General Stuart Young said at a briefing on Monday that there had been 61 murders so far in December alone. These included a shooting with a large-caliber automatic weapon outside a police station on Saturday that left one person dead, and an incident less than 24 hours later that left five dead and one injured in the Port of Spain area.

National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds told the same news conference that two more people had been killed on Friday – one in a gang-related incident, another in a “domestic situation” – and 15 more since last Monday were killed in gun-related incidents.

Police viewed the recent wave of incidents as an “outbreak of gang violence,” Hinds said, adding that the military would help enforce the state of emergency.

Attorney General Young added that the use of high-caliber firearms by criminal gangs had made the recent violence particularly concerning and led to the declaration of a state of emergency.

“Due to the speed and caliber of these weapons, the chance of survival is very low. This has been a major concern not only for us here in Trinidad and Tobago but throughout the CARICOM region,” he said, referring to the Caribbean Community regional group of states.

According to the US State Department, a significant portion of the country’s violent crimes – such as murder, assault and kidnapping – are linked to criminal gang activity and drug trafficking.

In July, the U.S. State Department raised its travel advisory for Trinidad and Tobago to Level 3, advising U.S. citizens to reconsider travel due to crime.

“Due to terrorism and kidnappings, increased caution is required in Trinidad and Tobago,” the travel warning says.

The attorney general said the government was in contact with the United States, where many of the high-powered weapons come from, to discuss how to bring the situation under control.

Although Caribbean countries do not produce firearms, more than 7,000 firearms were recovered from them between 2018 and 2022. According to the GAO, almost three-quarters of those came from the United States.