In the midst of a coronavirus epidemic, gang warfare has resumed in El Salvador. This small Central American country is one of the most dangerous in the world, outside areas of armed conflict, with an average in 2019 of 35.6 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. The majority of these killings are attributed to the maras, the armed gangs. This weekend, more than 50 people died in the country due to settling of scores. For the president, Nayib Bukele, the maras take advantage of the fact that the authorities are occupied by the epidemic to crack down, says our editorial writer Vincent Hervouët.
In the 1980s, the civil war killed 100,000 people in El Salvador. Three of the last four presidents then stole millions of dollars from the state. And then Nayib Bukele arrived. A year ago, this 37-year-old reformist came to power swearing to put the corrupt and the maras in step, these men who bear the number of their gang tattooed on their faces. He keeps his word, but there are relapses.
>> LIVE -Coronavirus: follow the development of the situation on Tuesday, April 28
"El Salvador was the jungle, it became a zoo"
Last weekend, the settling of accounts killed more than 50 people in the country. The authorities announced in the process that they put an end to the prison policy in force since 2002 which consisted in imprisoning separately the members of the terrible "maras" rivals. The president has cells emptied and hundreds of prisoners crammed into the hall, all gangs combined. The images have toured the world: hundreds of tattooed men, shaved heads, almost naked, lined up like cattle under guard. El Salvador was the jungle, with Bukele it became a zoo.
CORONAVIRUS ESSENTIALS
> How many deaths at home should be added to the epidemic?
> What is the purpose of AlloCOVID, the telephone platform that uses artificial intelligence?
> Why we will have to wait before finding masks in pharmacies
> Coronavirus: can the MMR vaccine be dangerous for children?
> These platforms which help to find a job during confinement
And Salvadoran authorities are using the health crisis to strike even harder. The coronavirus already imposes a state of emergency, the Salvadorans have been confined for a month and a half. Police now have the right to shoot gangs because they distract them from containment monitoring. The epidemic is good for leaders who want to be obeyed by the finger and the eye.