The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, said Thursday that the Central American country is not "not even close" the most violent in the world due to the reduction in homicides and noted that it is not among the top 10 violent nations either.
"We come from being the most violent country in the world and now we are not even close in those numbers, we are not even in the top 10"said the president during the laying of the first stone for the construction of a bridge between El Salvador and Guatemala.
El Salvador became the most violent country in the world in 2015 with a homicide rate of 103 per 100,000 inhabitants and after this escalation the figures began to decline in 2016, but the most marked falls in these crimes occurred since 2019, year in which Bukele came to power in June.
He indicated that the Police, Prosecutor’s Office and Institute of Legal Medicine are "certified figures", like "international organizations that are not totally related".
He criticized that, in his opinion, "what the opposition does is that they highlight each case" of murder or disappearance.
Bukele said that each case "It is not a reason for joy for anyone, it is a reason for mourning, sadness, pain", "but it is a reason for joy that another 28 did not die, that another 20 did not disappear", like in the past.
Regarding the criticism of the violence that still hits the country, he said that "Of course we are not good in security, we are bad in security, we have to continue working to really have a safe country, but we must know where we come from".
Consolidated figures from January to September indicate that the country registered a fall in the cumulative number of homicides in general of 10.2%, going from 969 in 2020 to 870 in 2021.
If the comparison is made between this same period of 2021 with 2019, the fall is approximately 56.7%.
However, the number of femicides experienced a rise of 31.25%, in the referred period, going from 48 femicides in 2020 to 63 in 2021.
If the data for 2021 is compared with 2019, when 98 femicides were computed between January and September, the result is a drop of 35 cases, equivalent to 35.7%.
The country faced an escalation of murders at the beginning of November that claimed the lives of more than 40 people, reaching 20 murders in a single day, when the average was about 3 homicides a day.
To try to control the escalation, of which no further details have been given about its origin, 40,000 elements of the PNC and the Armed Forces were deployed.
President Bukele spoke on Twitter about allegations that the sudden rise and fall in killings is linked to a "truce" or alleged negotiation with gangs.
"I have seen comments from people who say that the drop in homicides is due to a kind of ‘truce’. Ask the policemen and soldiers who are in the streets, who lost their licenses and have not seen their families, who have patrolled our entire country at night …"said the president on the social network.
Bukele, without going into details or providing evidence, previously attributed this rise in homicides to "dark forces that are working to bring us back to the past" and assured that "this government will not allow it".
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