SAN SALVADOR (AP) — More than 8,000 members of the Armed Forces and the police of El Salvador completely surrounded an apartment in the central zone of the country on Tuesday under the argument of searching for gang members in rural areas whom they blame of the attack at the weekend on a patrol of the security forces in which two policemen were wounded by gunshots.
“Since this morning, 7,000 soldiers and 1,000 police have established a security fence around the entire department of Cabañas. Their job will be to prevent gang members from leaving the department and cut off all the supply lines of terrorist groups,” reported the President Nayib Bukele on his official account on the X social network, formerly known as Twitter.
The president affirmed that in recent weeks, “Cabaña has become the place with the largest number of terrorist cells, who have come there looking for their rural areas to hide.” As early as June 2022, the Salvadoran government dismantled several clandestine camps in the same department where, according to the authorities, gang members go when they flee to rural areas.
In the operation in Cabañas, the uniformed officers have taken control of the highways and access streets to the department and are conducting searches of passenger and private vehicles. People must identify themselves to be able to enter and leave the area, while searches are also carried out in the communities to locate and capture gang members.
“The more than 1,100 square kilometers of Cabañas are surrounded. The terrorists are going to face justice,” warned the general director of the Police, Mauricio Arriaza Chicas, in a tweet.
This is the fifth military security siege implemented by the Salvadoran government, which in May deployed 5,000 soldiers and police in Nueva Concepción, department of Chalatenango, in the north of the country, after the murder of a police officer.
Since March 27 of last year, a state of emergency has been in force in El Salvador, promoted by President Bukele as part of his heavy-handed strategy against criminal structures, which implies the suspension of fundamental rights such as association, the right to have assistance from a lawyer and to know the reasons for an arrest. This situation has led to harsh criticism from human rights organizations.
Bukele warned that “the siege will remain as long as the operatives can extract all the gang members.”
He said that the population of Cabañas, its visitors and tourists can rest easy and carry out their activities normally, since “this massive fence further guarantees the security of the area and we will not lift it until we find all the criminals.”
On Sunday, two agents of the national civil police were shot in a rural area of the municipality of Ilobasco, department of Cabañas, 60 kilometers northeast of the capital, when suspected gang members ambushed a patrol of the security forces.
Congress recently approved a reform to prosecute captured gang members under emergency regime as a group, in an attempt to speed up the judicial red tape of thousands of cases that have accumulated in recent months.
More than 90% of the 71,000 alleged gang members or collaborators who have been captured only have provisional detention ordered by a judge, that is, they are in prison without a final sentence. According to the Public Ministry, the majority are for the crime of illegal groups.
With the new reform, they could be prosecuted in organized crime courts in groups of 900 people.
An increase in sentences from 45 to 60 years in prison for gang leaders was also approved.
Despite the restrictions on rights, Bukele maintains a high level of popularity above 80% and local opinion studies attribute this rating to the fight against gangs. According to the most recent surveys, 97.7% of Salvadorans think that violence has decreased and 81.8% that the state of exception has helped a lot to control crime.
