Bukele vs. maras | “Politicians in El Salvador gave the gangs a value they didn’t have: influence”

  • Marvin Romero
  • El Salvador, special for BBC News Mundo

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image source, Getty Images

After months in which homicides were contained and almost disappeared from official statistics in El Salvador, murders skyrocketed once more and the government reacted with a heavy hand.

The Central American country, one of the most violent in the world, returns to the spotlight due to the conflict between gangs, the so-called maras, and the government of controversial President Nayib Bukele.

The government denied that behind the almost disappearance of homicides there was a truce with the gangs and now it is determined to be strong with a state of emergency that has led to the imprisonment of thousands of young people and reforms of the penal code.

The Salvadorian Juan Carlos Torresdirector of the Master’s Program in Policies for the Prevention of Youth Violence and Culture of Peace at Don Bosco University in San Salvador, speaks with BBC Mundo and analyzes the evolution of gangs in the country from the perspective of the conflict between these groups and the Salvadoran government.

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