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The gangs are rampant, sowing terror and breaking homicide records. Who really controls El Salvador? The Mara Salvatrucha-13 and the Barrio-18 are two of the bloodiest criminal organizations and their influence is at an economic and social level in the Central American country. With a group of more than 60,000 members and some 600,000 families that work for them, the gangs have a chance to enter the political game in El Salvador.
These gangs go so far as to impose strikes on public transport, demanding that the authorities ease the repression of their activities and guarantee less difficult prison conditions for their members.
Shopkeepers and taxi drivers must pay a “rent”, a mandatory tax on pain of execution. Many leaders of these gangs owe their fortune to these “taxes.” Faced with this relentless dominance, police and prosecutors act under hoods at each crime scene for fear of reprisals.
The homicide rate in El Salvador has skyrocketed to 50 deaths a day. “The government can’t do anything, even after deploying thousands of soldiers, nothing changes. They have appropriated the laws of this country”, says Nuria de Escobar, a Salvadoran forensic scientist who for 20 years has dedicated herself to identifying the corpses left behind by this war.
The increase in deaths is no coincidence. In 2012, the two main gangs in the country had signed a truce with the Government, but the new president elected in 2014 broke off the talks. As a reply, the gangs decide to bloody the streets.
According to the Ministry of Defense, 10% of the population of El Salvador works directly for the gangs, that represents some 600,000 people. The extortion money used to go to weapons and drugs, but the gang’s strategy has changed and now its next target is the world of politics.
Gangs are no longer little orphans of the Civil War who kill for a piece of territory. In just one generation they have become a political and economic force. And today they are the greatest social and security challenge for the Salvadoran State.
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