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PoliticsEl Salvador

El Salvador seals off area in capital to combat gangs

December 3, 2022

President Nayib Bukele said "8,500 soldiers and 1,500 agents have surrounded" the municipality of Soyapango. The government is aiming to reduce the country's homicide rate to less than two a day.

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A soldier takes part in an operation in search of gang members, in Soyapango, El Salvador
The government aims to reduce the homicide rate to less than two a day, after dozens of people were killed in a single weekend in March this yearImage: Salvador Melendez/AP Photo/picture alliance

The government of El Salvador on Saturday ordered 10,000 soldiers and police officers to cordon off a suburb in the capital city known to be a stronghold for gangs.

Images released by the government showed troops in helmets holding heavy weapons while wearing bulletproof vests.

Soldiers arrive in Soyapango, El Salvador
President Bukele said "8,500 soldiers and 1,500 agents have surrounded" the municipalityImage: Salvador Melendez/AP Photo/picture alliance

The deployment was one of the largest mobilizations yet in President Nayib Bukele's nine-month crackdown on gangs that have historically coerced money from businesses and ruled many parts of the nation's capital, San Salvador.

What do we know so far?

Special teams went into the area looking for suspected gang members, while roads going in and out of the suburb of Soyapango were blocked off by the authorities so that they could check people's documents.

"As of now, the municipality of Soyapango is totally fenced off," President Bukele tweeted. "8,500 soldiers and 1,500 agents have surrounded the city, while extraction teams from the police and the army are tasked with extricating all the gang members still there one by one."

Stronghold of gangs

The municipality in the eastern part of the capital region is known to be a stronghold of the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 gangs.

With a population of around 300,000 people, the municipality was previously considered impregnable for law enforcement.

Since Bukele kicked off his efforts to deal with gangs in the Central American country, he has ordered the arrest of more than 50,000 alleged gang members, whom he describes as terrorists.

The strategy aims to reduce the country's homicide rate to less than two a day.

Human rights concerns

However, the president has also denied basic procedural rights to many of those arrested.

Earlier this year, human rights advocates told DW that waves of mass arrests in El Salvador have swept innocent people into the country's violent and deadly prison system.

jsi/ar (AP, dpa, Reuters)