Salvadoran authorities have arrested more than 9,000 alleged gang members over the past two weeks, President Najib Boukele announced on Sunday as part of a state of emergency imposed after an outbreak of 87 deaths from March 25 to 27. .
“More than 9,000 gang members (arrested) in just 15 days. We will continue the war against the gangs,” the head of state said on Twitter, who has been criticized by humanitarian organizations, inside and outside the country, for human rights violations.
Police said that since the beginning of the “war on gangs”, they have sent 9,120 alleged criminals behind bars.
It is the first time in twenty years that the Salvadorian authorities have made thousands of arrests of alleged criminals in such a short time.
Law enforcement agencies have launched a full-scale offensive against the “mara”, the gangs that are mainly involved in drug trafficking and extortion and are accused of the recent wave of murders.
Parliament passed laws that increased the maximum sentence for gang membership fivefold (from nine to 45 years in prison) and provide for sentences of up to 15 years in prison for those who spread obscene messages through the media.
After dozens of assassinations in late March, Salvador’s parliament, dominated by the president’s New Ideas party, approved a state of emergency.
Mara Salvatroutsa (MS-13), Barrio 18 and other gangs number about 70,000 members in the small Central American country, according to authorities. In March, about 16,000 of them were imprisoned, but now, after the recent arrests, their number has now exceeded 25,000.
In 2021, 1,147 homicides were recorded in El Salvador, or 18 per 100,000 inhabitants.
SOURCE: AMPE
Source: Capital
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