El Salvador: President threatens to make detainees 'pay' if gangs don't stop violence
A police officer checks passengers on a bus after a state of emergency was declared, in San Salvador, March 27, 2022. © Jessica Orellana / Reuters
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1 min
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.
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“
Stop killing or else they will pay for it too
,” Bukele tweeted, posting a video showing barefoot inmates in their underwear being roughly dragged from their cells by their guards, forced to run with their hands on their legs. head, then violently driven handcuffed behind their backs into a prison yard, some falling to the ground.
“
We have
16,000 homeboys
(gang members, Ed)
in our power, in addition to the
1,000 who have been arrested in recent days
,
said the president in his tweet
.
We have confiscated everything from them, even the mattresses to sleep on, we are rationing their food and now they will no longer 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 Sunday
the establishment of the state of emergency
for one month in this small country of Central America in order to fight against the violence of the "
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 largest of which are the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18, have some 70,000 members in El Salvador, according to the authorities.
(With AFP)
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salvador
Nayib Bukele
Crime