El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele threatened on Monday (March 28) to attack some 16,000 imprisoned gang members if they did not stop their killings. The Parliament of the Central American country validated on Sunday March 27 the establishment of a state of emergency to deal with the wave of violence, at the origin of 87 homicides in three days.
” Stop killing or else they gon’ pay for it too “, tweeted Mr. Bukele, posting a video showing detainees barefoot and in their underwear, taken unceremoniously from their cells by their guards, forced to run with their hands on their heads, then violently driven handcuffed behind their backs into a prison yard, some falling to the ground.
” We have 16 000 homeboys (gang members, Editor’s note) in our power, in addition to the 1 000 who have been arrested in recent daysat said the president in his tweet. We confiscated everything from them, even the mattresses to sleep on, we rationed their food and now they won’t see the sun “.
The president announced on Monday that all prisoners in the country would now be confined to their cells 24 hours a day.
The Parliament of El Salvador, at the request of the president, had approved on Sunday establishment of a state of emergency for a month in this small Central American country to fight against the violence of ” maras “. These criminal gangs live mainly from drug trafficking and racketeering and are considered responsible for a spike in murders in recent days.
These organizations, the most important of which are the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18, have some 70,000 members in El Salvador, according to the authorities.
(With AFP)