A command of 10,000 soldiers and police surrounded the entire municipality of Soyapango, on the outskirts of San Salvador -Salvador-, at dawn this Saturday, with a single objective ordered by the controversial president Nayib Bukele: to hunt down gang members.
“From now on, the municipality of Soyapango is totally fenced off. 8,500 soldiers and 1,500 agents have surrounded the city ”, with 242,000 inhabitants, as confirmed by Bukele himself through Twitter, his preferred platform to report on his government decisions.
The president had announced on November 23 that he would surround entire cities so that the military could search house to house and arrest gang members. And Soyapango is the first city in which this measure is applied.
The soldiers and police posted themselves in the early hours of the morning in all the access streets to the municipality, without allowing anyone to enter or leave the place without first being searched. The uniformed men –according to Bukele– will be in charge of “removing one by one all the gang members who are still there.”
Several hours after the operation began, the Minister of Justice and Security, Gustavo Villatoro, said that “there are already 12 gang members who are in custody, all with criminal records.”
The war against the “maras”, which Bukele launched on March 27 under a state of emergency, has led to the arrest of more than 58,800 suspected gang members, according to Villatoro, but has been questioned by humanitarian organizations for its cruelty.
Soyapango has been considered an unsafe municipality for years due to gang activity. A few months ago, the authorities began removing graffiti alluding to gangs.
The actions implemented by the Bukele government in Soyapango, by virtue of the state of emergency, have led to “a huge improvement in their security,” its mayor, Nercy Montano, acknowledged earlier this week.
The state of emergency, which allows arrests without a warrant, was declared by the President in response to an escalation of violence that claimed the lives of 87 people between March 25 and 27. In addition, despite being questioned by humanitarian organizations, the emergency regime was extended by Congress until mid-December.
Colonias throughout Soyapango woke up with a strong presence of soldiers and police, who were looking for gang members walking slowly and with their assault rifles in hand. Army combat vehicles and police cars roamed the streets of the city. And, from the air, police drones flew over the area to try to locate gang members.
Defense Minister René Merino specified that there are 40 “control points” installed in Soyapango. “It has been a surprise (the operation), they are registering you and they ask us for your identity document to verify where we live, but it’s okay, everything is for our safety,” Guadalupe Pérez, 53, told AFP. who lives in one of the neighborhoods of the municipality.
Meanwhile, policemen were boarding public transport buses to search the passengers.
“Ordinary citizens have nothing to fear and can continue to lead their lives as normal. This is an operation against criminals, not against honest citizens,” Bukele emphasized.