El Salvador
15.
We are in April of 2015 and the killings in El Salvador since January 1st, 2015 average out to 15 per day. PER DAY. 15. March 2015 marked the deadliest month in the past ten years with 481 homicides.
In 2014 El Salvador registered 3,942 killings, leading them to have a murder rate of 63 per 100,000 inhabitants – one of the highest in the world. To put this into perspective, the global murder rate average is 6.2 per 100,000 inhabitants; the average in the United States is 4.7 per 100,000.
The gang violence has caused so much death that in 2012 the Catholic Church (backed by El Salvador’s government) stepped in to create a truce between Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18. The truce took place in a church and was agreed upon by leaders of Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha that were imprisoned, a Bishop, and mediators provided by the government. When the truce was agreed upon citizens of El Salvador raised their hopes as the homicide rate lowered drastically, from an average of 14 per day to 6. However, government and military leaders all agree that the truce has ended, as the rate of homicides has increased to the amounts they are at currently.
Below leaders of Mara Salvatrucha speak of the truce from an El Salvadoran prison. A powerful quote from the video below:
“Today all these people who have formed governments, have become legislators, judges, who hold important positions, have forgotten that we are the children of war. We are those who grew up seeing others, including our families, being killed… [our gangs] were born out of immigration. Our parents and us went to the United States looking for peace and better lives. But instead, we hit racial discrimination. We had to unify ourselves as Central Americans… we had to defend ourselves.”
The increase in violence is causing the humanitarian crisis at the border of the United States and Mexico.
The government is currently unsteady and is similar to that of the civil war that ran immigrants to the United States in the 1980s. This time, however, the civil war is between military (with citizens) and gang members. During the civil war the government created three battalions to respond swiftly to violence; they are now considering re-creating them for towards the gang violence. Residents and military discuss, openly, creating groups to exterminate the gangs.
Rivalries between the gangs were so animus that when members were arrested they were kept in separate prisons all together. The video below show Barrio 18 in Cojutepeque prison.
Until this past week, when the government of El Salvador decided to move both gangs into their maximum security prison, Izalco; so far 1,500 gang members have been moved.
Recruitment into these gangs can begin from 7 or 8 years old, below is a story of how one child views the type of life you can expect after joining these gangs:
Works Cited:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/04/talk-of-death-squads-to-combat-new-wave-of-gang-violence-in-el-Salvador/
http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/04/talk-of-death-squads-to-combat-new-wave-of-gang-violence-in-el-Salvador/
http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/2-divergent-views-on-el-salvador-gang-truce-1-sad-conclusion
http://www.ticotimes.net/2015/04/26/el-salvador-moves-400-jailed-gang-members-as-part-of-plan-to-curb-violence
Central American Gangs, Barrio 18, Mara Salvatrucha, Guatemala, Honduras