Locate and capture: It was Bukele’s latest operation to catch gang members in an El Salvador neighborhood

A working-class neighborhood in San Salvador woke up surrounded by 2,000 soldiers and 500 police officers. The objective, according to President Nayib Bukele, was to track down and capture a group of gang members hiding in the area.

“We have established a security barrier throughout the colony to extract the last gang member found in the area,” the president wrote in your X account (formerly Twitter) and shared a video of the many members of the force, fully armed.

This type of measure responds to the zero tolerance that Bukele and his government have established towards gangs such as Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) and Barrio 18, and thus reduce organized crime and homicides on the streets of El Salvador.

Anyway, there are still some small gangs which continue to operate in the country.

This operational end in the 10 de Octubre neighborhood in San Marcos, San Salvador Sur, It was led by the Minister of National Defense, René Francis Merino Monroy.

“We are pursuing these criminals” » the Salvadoran minister began to explain to the press. According to him, they received information that a group of gang members wanted to establish themselves in the area and “for this reason, the president decided to order the establishment of this fence.”

At the same time, the Minister of Public Security, Gustavo Villatoro, was also on site as a supervisor.

Even before capturing them, the authorities already knew who they were: Merino Monroy declared that he had their “files and profiles” in his possession, thanks to the work of police intelligence.

So that they do not escape, apart from human encirclement, Some groups searched the area with large flashlights with instructions to “locate and capture”, while checkpoints were established around the neighborhood to prevent any escape. gang members.

“To extract the last gang member found in the area,” Bukele said.

As happened in this neighborhood of the Salvadoran capital, Two other areas were surrounded by the military in 2024, after police identified the creation of groups of gang members who have for some time evaded Bukele’s harsh measures.

Bukele, when he came to powerdeclared war on gangs and promised to reduce the number of homicides and violence which have been hitting the country for more than three decades.

Deaths, extortion and drug trafficking were commonplace in the country, especially in marginal neighborhoods: In 2015, El Salvador was on the list of the most violent countries in the world.

However, to remedy the situation, Bukele established the exceptional regime in 2022 that suspends the fundamental rights of the population, such as being assisted by a lawyer in the event of detention, being informed of the reasons for the arrest, and authorities can intervene in the communications of those they consider suspects.

In addition, The Penal Code was amended to make gang membership a crime, whose sentence is 20 to 40 years in prison. Leaders can face up to 60, they write in Infobae .

To date, 81,420 gang members or linked to gangs were arrested. More than 90% of them are in prison without having been convicted and at least 7,000 have been released for lack of evidence, according to an article in Los Angeles Times .

Even though homicide figures have decreased, there is another aspect that continues to be criticized by local and international organizations that They denounced the arbitrary arrests, torture and deaths (more than 300) attributable to the Salvadoran government.

In addition, The country’s journalists have accused, with supporting evidence, Bukele of having entered into a pact with gangs to control violence in the country.