Q24N (EFE) The Minister of Security of El Salvador, Gustavo Villatoro, announced lastFriday that the country has a total of 700 non-consecutive days since 2019 without homicides, a count that has been questioned due to the lack of information and the exclusion of certain violent deaths in the figures.
“We counted 700 days without homicides, an achievement that reflects the coordinated effort from a State of Law,” Villatoro published on the social network X.
He added that “these achievements in terms of security are also the result of the sacrifice of our heroes who gave their lives in the line of duty.”
– Advertisement –
Organizations, such as the Observatorio Universitario de Derechos Humanos (OUDH) de la Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) – University Observatory of Human Rights of the Central American University, have questioned the veracity of the Bukele government’s homicide figures on more than one occasion.
For 2022, he said that the official figure of 7.8 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants “lacks veracity,” given that it does not count the human remains found or the deaths of alleged gang members that occurred in armed confrontations with the police.
Other acts of violence that are not counted among the homicides are the deaths of alleged criminals at the hands of citizens, data that in previous governments were considered homicides.
The Bukele government attributes the drop in the number of homicides to the suspension of constitutional guarantees through an exceptional regime, in force since March 2022 and which has left more than 81,900 detainees and more than 300 dead in prisons.
Bukele took the reins of the country in June 2019, when homicides had been declining for at least three consecutive years.
El Salvador had just recorded its deadliest year in 2015, with a rate of about 103 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, which in 2018 reached 50.3, a drop that was accentuated with the arrival of Bukele to 36 in 2019.
– Advertisement –
In 2020 it was 21.2, in 2021 it was 18.1, and for 2022 there was a drastic drop to 7.8, and for 2023 it was 2.4.
Official data on violence is kept secret and the figures that the Government or Bukele release on social media are known punctually.
– Advertisement –
Source link
Q24N
