SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — The president of El Salvador announced Wednesday he will seal off sections of cities to search for street gang members, the latest phase in an increasingly tough nine-month anti-crime crackdown.
President Nayib Bukele told a gathering of 14,000 army troops that certain sectors of cities in El Salvador will be surrounded by police and soldiers, and that anyone entering or leaving will be checked. Bukele said such tactics worked in the town of Comasagua in October.
Bukele called it “Phase Five” of the crackdown, which has jailed more than 58,000 people since a state of emergency was declared following a wave of homicides in late March.
“Now comes phase five, which is rooting out the criminals that still remain in communities,” Bukele said.
In October, more than 2,000 soldiers and police surrounded and closed off Comasagua in order to search for street gang members accused in a killing. Drones flew over the town, and everyone entering or leaving the town was questioned or searched. About 50 suspects were detained in two days.
“It worked,” Bukele said. The government estimates that homicides dropped 38% in the first 10 months of the year compared to the same period of 2021.
Bukele requested Congress grant him extraordinary powers after gangs were blamed for 62 killings on March 26, and that emergency decree has been renewed every month since then. It suspends some Constitutional rights and gives police more powers to arrest and hold suspects.
Under the decree, the right of association, the right to be informed of the reason for an arrest and access to a lawyer are suspended. The government also can intervene in the calls and mail of anyone they consider a suspect. The time someone can be held without charges is extended from three days to 15 days.
Rights activists say young men are frequently arrested just based on their age, on their appearance or whether they live in a gang-dominated slum.
El Salvador’s gangs, which have been estimated to count some 70,000 members in their ranks, have long controlled swaths of territory and extorted and killed with impunity.
But Bukele’s crackdown reached another level earlier this month when the government sent inmates into cemeteries to destroy the tombs of gang members at a time of year when families typically visit their loved ones’ graves.
Nongovernmental organizations have tallied several thousand human rights violations and at least 80 in-custody deaths of people arrested during the crackdown.
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