Salvadoran authorities have arrested more than 30,000 gang members since President Nayib Bukele launched a " war
" at the end of March
against these criminal gangs accused of spreading terror through murder and racketeering, the authorities announced on Monday (May 16). police.
Read alsoSalvador: the state of emergency introduced after a wave of homicides attributed to gangs
“
536 terrorists were arrested on Sunday May 15, fifty days after the start of the state of emergency.
The total number of arrests since the start of the gang war is 30,506
,” police said on their Twitter account.
The government's offensive against gangs began after a spike in homicides that left 87 people dead in two days in late March, killings for which authorities have blamed these criminal groups.
Up to 45 years in prison
At the request of the Head of State, Parliament has decreed an exceptional regime that allows incarceration without a court order and an increase in the length of prison sentences for gang members, up to 45 years in prison .
This regime was extended for 30 days at the end of April.
It also makes it possible to restrict freedom of assembly and the rights of the defence, lengthens periods of police custody and authorizes telephone tapping.
The criminal gangs, among which the most violent are La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18, have some 70,000 members, according to the authorities.
Now, counting the recent arrests, 46,000 of them are imprisoned according to the authorities, an unprecedented figure in thirty years in this Central American country of 6.5 million inhabitants.
Human rights organizations have denounced the arrest of scores of young people unrelated to gangs.
Read alsoSalvador: Unicef asks not to imprison children recruited by gangs
Salvadoran Vice-President Félix Ulloa, defended on May 5 before representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) the government's offensive against gangs.
“
The Salvadoran State has the
“
Jus ad bellum
”
to defend the people against the violence of criminal gangs (...).
'
Jus ad bellum
'
is the branch of humanitarian law that defines the legitimate reasons that a state has to wage war in a legitimate and just manner
, ”
he said.
