The state of emergency declared in March 2022 by El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, who waged a large-scale fight against armed gangs, was successful. In his statement, Minister of Justice and Security Gustavo Villatoro stated that the murder rate in El Salvador decreased by approximately 70 percent last year, and that the number of murders, which was 495 the previous year, dropped to 154 last year.
Stating that this statistic means a murder rate of 2.4 per 100 thousand people, Villatoro stated that this murder rate is the lowest in the American continent outside Canada.
PRISON FOR 40 THOUSAND PEOPLE
According to official data, more than a thousand murders were committed in El Salvador in 2021 and 2020, and more than 2 thousand murders in 2019. With the state of emergency declared in the country in March 2022, security forces were allowed to quickly arrest and imprison suspected gang members.
According to official data, since the state of emergency came into force, security forces have arrested approximately 75 thousand suspected gang members and later released 7 thousand of them.
Due to the high number of people arrested in the war against gangs in El Salvador, a giant prison was built and opened on February 1, 2023. The prison, which has a capacity of 40 thousand people, is known as the largest prison in the American continent. (UAV)
