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El Salvador’s president announced on Wednesday that he would cordon off parts of the city in search of street gang members, the latest phase of a nine-month crackdown on crime.
President Nayib Bukele told a rally of 14,000 troops that certain areas of the Salvadoran city would be surrounded by police and soldiers and that anyone entering or leaving would be checked. That tactic worked in October in the town of Comasagua, Bukele said.
Bukele called it the “fifth phase” of a crackdown that has jailed more than 58,000 people since a state of emergency was declared in late March following a wave of homicides.
“Now it’s phase five, which is the eradication of offenders who are still in the community,” Bukele said.
In October, more than 2,000 soldiers and police surrounded and closed Comasagua in search of street gang members accused of the killings. Drones flew over the town, and anyone entering or leaving the town was questioned or frisked. About 50 suspects were detained over two days.
“It worked,” Bukele said. Homicides fell 38% in the first 10 months of this year compared with the same period in 2021, the government estimates.
After gangs were blamed for 62 killings on March 26, Booker asked Congress to grant him extraordinary powers and has renewed the emergency order every month since. It suspends some constitutional rights and gives police more powers to arrest and detain suspects.
According to the decree, the rights to associate, to be informed of the reasons for the arrest and to have access to a lawyer are suspended. The government can also interfere with the phone calls and emails of anyone they deem a suspect. The period for which someone can be detained without charge has been extended from three days to 15 days.
Activists say young people are often arrested based on age, appearance or whether they live in gang-dominated slums.
El Salvador’s gangs, estimated to number around 70,000 members, have long controlled large swathes of territory and practiced extortion and killing with impunity.
But Bukeler’s crackdown reached another level earlier this month, when the government sent prisoners to cemeteries to destroy gang members’ graves at a time of year when families usually visit the graves of their loved ones.
NGOs have documented thousands of human rights violations and the death in prison of at least 80 people arrested during the crackdown.
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