The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, announced this Wednesday that police and soldiers will surround cities to arrest gang members in the framework of a war against criminal gangs that already leaves 58,000 detainees.
"What we are practically going to do is surround large cities and carry out the processes of extracting the terrorists who are inside those cities, without giving them the chance to escape."assured the ruler in a speech.
The ruler spoke before some 14,000 soldiers who were concentrated in a piece of land near a military barracks on the outskirts of the city of San Juan Opico, 35 km west of San Salvador.
Bukele said he would not reveal "for security reasons" the names of the cities "in the coming days" They will be surrounded by police and soldiers, to do a meticulous search for gang members and arrest them.
The president assured that the idea of ​​putting fences in large cities is based on "the success" which was held at the beginning of last October in the town of Comasagua, 30 km to the south of the capital, where after a homicide a police and military siege was placed that allowed the dismantling of a cell of the Mara Salvatrucha gang (MS-13).
"If they (the gang members) want to escape or someone wants to supply them with weapons or food or ammunition, or cell phones or anything else they use to intimidate the population, then there (the police and soldiers) will intercept them"Bukele insisted.
The government did not specify the date of when they will begin to be security fences installed which the president said "the population requests and approves".
The assembly of security fences in cities for the "gang member extraction" it is part, Bukele said, of the so-called government security plan "land control" which is now "reinforced" with the exception regime that allows the impulse of the war against the gangs.
The exception regime promoted from the 27th of March and that it allows arrests without a warrant, was declared in response to an escalation of violence that claimed the lives of 87 people from March 25 to 27.
Questioned by humanitarian organizations, the emergency regime was recently extended by Congress until mid-December and the president himself said "It has been a complete success, since it has allowed the arrest of 58,000 people, presumed gang members.
Before March and before the emergency regime began, in the prisons of El Salvador had 16,000 jailed gang members. Most of those detained are members of the gangs MS-13 and its rival Barrio 18 in its southern and revolutionary factions.