Nayib Bukele's Twitter account resembles a war diary.

For a week now, the Salvadoran President has also been at war, so to speak - at war against the Maras, as the criminal gangs in Central America are called.

After one of the bloodiest days in recent history, with more than 60 murders last Saturday, Bukele summoned the parliament he controls to approve an emergency regime that will give the government far-reaching special rights for thirty days.

Since then, the government's counter-offensive against the gangs has been going on.

In the past few days, countless house searches and raids have taken place, for which purpose entire parts of the city have been cordoned off.

Over 3,000 people were arrested, including some known and wanted criminals, but also many who were only suspects.

The emergency regime allows people to be arrested for up to 15 days without giving a reason.

Food in prisons is rationed

On Wednesday, Parliament also approved a drastic increase in penalties for gang members.

Belonging to a gang is to be punished in the future with imprisonment of 20 to 30 years, gang leaders have to reckon with 40 to 45 years in prison, which corresponds to about five times the previous penalties.

Minors over the age of twelve will also face a prison sentence in the future.

On one of the videos from the country's prisons that Bukele released, he added the comment: "Show your teenagers this video, explain to them that joining a gang has only two options: prison or death."

The authorities also raided the country's prisons, where thousands of gang members are already being held.

The government also ordered meal rationing in prisons.

"Food has been rationed since Sunday and the 16,000 jailed gang members have not left their cells or seen the sun," Bukele wrote on Twitter on Thursday.

“In these days we have arrested another 3000 (and we continue).

So there will be less and less space and we have to ration even more.”

Human Rights Watch: State of emergency jeopardizes citizens' rights

According to local media, family members denounce the arbitrary arrest of suspected gang members and say that relatives were unfairly arrested.

At the same time, human rights organizations are warning the government to exercise caution.

Human Rights Watch said in a statement that the government should confront gang violence while respecting rights.

Instead of protecting the Salvadorans, the state of emergency is endangering their rights, the organization said.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights condemned the crackdown on convicts in the detention centers.

Bukele dismissed the criticism as hypocritical.

No country helped El Salvador in the war against the gangs.

Now no one should come "to tell us what we should or shouldn't have done," he tweeted.

After the bloody weekend, the murder rates have leveled off again at the relatively low level that the Salvadorans are familiar with from the past few years.

Not a single murder was registered on Wednesday, which is a rarity in El Salvador.

For a long time, the country was one of the most dangerous countries in the world.

However, Bukele has managed to significantly reduce murder rates.

However, his government had entered into a pact with the country's gangs, as research showed.

The gang leaders called their men back in exchange for prison privileges and guarantees not to be extradited to the United States.

The low murder rate is one of the reasons for Bukele's popularity in El Salvador, which also explains the violent reaction to the murder wave.