66,417 prisoners, 5,802 victims of abuse in a year of state of emergency

The emergency regime declared in El Salvador in the face of gang violence completed one year in force on Monday with 66,417 detainees, 4,304 released and 5,802 alleged victims of human rights violations.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said on Twitter that “March 2023 is close to being the safest month” in the history of El Salvador recalling the massacre of 62 homicides on March 26, 2022. “This was one of the most difficult days of my life and of this government . Now, a year later, we closed with 0 homicides”, he indicated. As a result of that day, the exception was decreed, which has been repeatedly extended until it has been in force for one year.

Bukele shared a video on Monday that recalls the “bloodiest day in the country in its recent history”, with 87 deaths in three days, from March 25 to 27, 2022 and the approval of the state of emergency.

“If it was makeup of figures, the figures would be fine but reality would say something else,” he defended. “At last our people live in true peace,” the video resumed words expressed by the president over the past year.

For their part, on Monday, a network of Salvadoran organizations, including Cristosal and the Foundation for Studies for the Application of Law (Fespad), reported 111 deaths in custody in the first year, 4,723 cases of human rights violations in of which there are 5,802 presumed direct victims of arbitrary capture, torture, lack of due process, trespassing, threats, police harassment, ill-treatment or cruel or degrading treatment.

The organizations assured that El Salvador has become the country with the highest rate of inmates in the world, 2,303 per 100,000 adults, since there are 101,558 people deprived of liberty and prisons have a capacity of 69,363. The government reported on Friday the release of 4,304 people.

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