The President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukeleimposed a military and police siege on Tuesday in the central department of Cabañas, in a new offensive of his “war” against the gangs that began in March 2022.
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Although Bukele has imposed military sieges on cities and municipalities since last year as part of his strategy to dismantle the feared gangs that controlled a large part of the national territory, this is the first time he has done it in an entire department.
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“Since this morning, 7,000 soldiers and 1,000 police officers have established a security fence around the entire department of Cabañas,” the president wrote on the Twitter network, now called X, when announcing the operation. “Their job will be to prevent gang members from leaving the department and cut off all supply lines to terrorist groups,” he added.
In recent weeks, “as a result of our war against gangs, Cabañas has become the place with the largest number of terrorist cells, who have come there looking for their rural areas to hide,” the president said.
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He indicated that the fence “will be maintained as long as the operatives can extract all the gang members.”
Since this morning, 7,000 soldiers and 1,000 police have established a security fence around the entire department of Cabañas.
Their job will be to prevent gang members from leaving the department and cut off all supply lines for terrorist groups. pic.twitter.com/qlNQMAJcIE
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) August 1, 2023
This Tuesday you could see the movement of military trucks loaded with soldiers in the streets of Tejutepeque and Ilobaso, two of the municipalities of Cabañas.
“Since this morning we have seen the presence of the military,” Reina Navarrete, a radio host from the town of Victoria, also from Cabañas, told AFP by phone.
Where and what will happen?
Cabañas has 150,000 inhabitants and is one of the smallest departments in El Salvador, barely 1,100 square kilometers.
It is an agricultural region, with coffee and sugar cane crops and small farmers. Its head, the city of Sensuntepeque, is about 70 kilometers west of San Salvador.
(Keep reading: The alarming number of children affected by Bukele’s emergency regime in El Salvador)
In response to an escalation of 87 homicides in one weekend, the Salvadoran president launched his war against gangs in March 2022, under the protection of an emergency regime approved by Congress but questioned by human rights organizations.
Since then, nearly 72,000 suspected gang members have been detained. “Our agents are deployed to dismantle what remains of the MS-13 Cabañas program,” the police said on their Twitter account.
(See also: Controversy in El Salvador over the possible recapture of a journalist critical of Nayib Bukele)
The Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 with their two factions are the most numerous gangs that made Salvadorans uneasy.
Security Minister Gustavo Villatoro promised that “not a single one of the gang members will remain” in the area. “The goal is clear, we will completely cleanse El Salvador of the gangs,” he wrote on his Twitter account.
AFP AGENCY
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