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In a new offensive of the war against the violent gangs, the president of El Salvador imposed this Wednesday a military siege around Nueva Concepción, [departamento norteño de] Chalatenango where a policeman was murdered on Tuesday.
By Vladimir Chamorro, from San Salvador, for RFI
In the early hours of Wednesday, the government of Nayib Bukele mobilized more than 5,000 public security elements to the north of El Salvador to establish a military siege in the municipality of Nueva Concepción, in response to the murder of a police agent for alleged gang members, which occurred in that town on Tuesday afternoon.
From his Twitter account, Bukele announced that he will destroy the murderers of the police officer and his collaborators and ordered their permanent imprisonment. In the municipality, police and military conduct patrols and check people and vehicles that travel through the area. At the closing of this note, the police have only reported the capture of an alleged person involved.
Given the homicide that occurred yesterday, of an agent of our @PNCSVby gang members who are still in some sectors of our country, hidden, fleeing the Exception Regime…
Starting this morning, we established a security fence around the municipality of… pic.twitter.com/6r8BxuLBDb
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) May 17, 2023
This would be the fifth military siege imposed in the 14 months that the State of Exception has been in force, a measure of territorial control that suspends constitutional guarantees to dismantle gangs and that has left a balance of more than 68,000 people imprisoned for alleged ties to them. criminal structures.
While the authorities celebrate accumulating more than 365 days without homicides under the Bukele administration, various national and international organizations question the measure, due to the hundreds of reports of human rights violations and abuses by security forces. After more than a year in a State of Exception, this is the first case in which a police officer would be a victim of gangs.
Despite the criticism, the measure is highly popular among the population, especially those who have been victims of violence or extortion by gang groups. The government, for its part, assures that the State of Exception will continue until all the gang members in the country are captured.
