Following the collapse of a controversial gang truce, El Salvador saw homicides spike by 57 percent in 2014. Now that the president has come out against reinstating the truce, the country faces a difficult way forward in terms of lowering violence.
According to figures from El Salvador's national police, a total of 3,912 homicides were registered in 2014, 1,422 more than the previous year, reported La Prensa Grafica. It's an extraordinary amount of homicides for a country of only 6.1 million.
El Salvador's forensic institute, the Institute of Legal Medicine (IML), registered a slightly higher figure -- 30 more than the national police -- and calculated the homicide rate at 68.6 per 100,000, compared to 43.7 the year before. This means the country saw an average of 10.8 homicides a day in 2014, up from 6.9 in 2013.I'm still not sure how much of the increase in murders is the result of gangs not hiding bodies or actually an increase in violence. And while I am worried about the overall violence in El Salvador, I am especially worried about the violence between the police and the gangs.
Thirty-nine police officers were killed in 2014, with officials believing that at least 27 of those officers were targeted because of their profession. Another five police have been killed within the past week. In a country with a history of state-sanctioned violence and extrajudicial executions and a population calling for blood, this could get uglier quickly. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani will be walking into unknown territory. It will be interesting to see how the rhetoric changes in the lead up to March's elections. ARENA's rhetoric always gets heated come election time and 2015 will be no different (though maybe worse).
No comments:
Post a Comment