One person disappears every 24 hours in El Salvador, according to non-governmental organizations citing data from prosecutors.
El Salvador's attorney general's office , of the small Central American state, where a “war” against organized crime is being waged since the spring of 2022 counted 366 missing personsin the twelve months to May 31 this year, as explained by the Working Group on the Disappeared in El Salvador, a collective of NGOs.
The government of El Salvador, for its part, boasts that 650 days have passed without ” no” murders since President Naguib Bukele, who took office in 2019, declared “war” on gangs in March 2022.
After a series of killings that month, President Bukele declared a state of emergency, deploying the military at home and curtailing constitutional rights. Under the so-called “state of exception”, a huge maximum security prison was built and group trials were held.
The young head of state secured huge popularity thanks to an improved security situation and was re-elected with 85% of the vote in February — overriding the Constitution, which in theory banned consecutive terms in the presidency, by a ruling by a court appointed by his party, the faction New Ideas, which has an absolute majority in parliament.
The dark side of the war against crime
However, human rights organizations point out here and long the dark side of the “war” it is waging, in particular the dozens of deaths of prisoners in prisons and the arbitrary arrests and torture of suspects, including children.
President Bukele rejects the criticism and boasts that El Salvador is now “the safest country in the Western Hemisphere”.
According to Idalia Cepeda, a member of the collective, the 366 disappearances recorded in the last year are a number up by almost 10%, if the UN and USAID estimates for the previous year are taken into account.
The Task Force on the Disappeared has created a web portal for the missing, so that a more complete inventory can be made and support offered to the families of the disappeared. He emphasized that he has no intention of replacing the work of any public service, but wants accurate information to be provided to citizens.
He also criticized the government's human rights commissioner Andres Guzmán for a lack of transparency regarding the disappearances.
Neither Mr. Guzmán's services nor the prosecutor's office immediately responded when asked to comment by the Reuters news agency.
source: CNN Greece
