Development: On 17 August El Salvador’s attorney general’s office (FGR) reported that there had been 28 violent homicides across the country the previous day, with 11 people killed in shootouts between the security forces and the members of different local street gangs (maras).
Significance: The alarming level of homicides registered on Sunday serve as the latest evidence that El Salvador is entering into a worrying period of violence as the maras intensify their activities following last year’s breakdown of the ‘truce’ that they had observed since 2012 and the ensuing crackdown launched by the local security forces. This is a major problem for the government led by President Salvador Sánchez Cerén, which has been clear that it will not negotiate another truce with the maras and instead will pursue a hard-line public security policy against them.
- According to the FGR report, mara members were involved in all of the violent deaths registered on Sunday. The FGR said that 17 people were killed across the country in attacks linked to gang activity. Meanwhile, five members of the Barrio 18 Revolucionarios gang were said to have been killed in the municipality of Panchimalco, San Salvador department, during a joint operation by the national police (PNC) and the armed forces (Faes) after a PNC-Faes patrol that entered the area was met with gunfire. In a similar incident, six suspected gang members were killed in Cojutepeque municipality, Cuscatlán department, in a shootout with another PNC-Faes unit.
- According to the PNC, the operations were based on intelligence that maras were planning to attack police units in these areas. The FGR has reported that high-calibre weapons were seized from those gang members killed in the attack. According to the PNC – which emphasised that its officials only ever fired in in self-defence – while some officials were injured, there were no fatalities.
- On the latest figures from the institute for legal medicine (IML), up to 12 August the number of homicides in El Salvador stood at 3,603 for this year. A total of 3,912 homicides were registered for the whole of 2014. With the current daily homicide average at 16.2 per day, it is likely that the 2015 homicide figure will be higher than last year.
Looking Ahead: The recent increase in planned attacks by the ‘maras’ on the security forces is fanning concerns that some gangs have now joined forces to fight the State in some areas which will further intensify the challenge for the Sánchez Cerén government.
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