At least 14 inmates in an El Salvadorean jail were killed on Saturday when violence erupted between two factions of a notorious gang, an official said.
The killings at Quezaltepeque prison, about 30km north of the capital, San Salvador, were linked to an internal dispute involving the feared Barrio 18 gang, a spokesman for the presidency said.
The prison was placed on lockdown and security ramped up, as about 50 people with relatives in the jail descended on the facility, some weeping and others demanding to know the identities of the dead.
A state of emergency was declared for 72 hours at the jail and authorities said that they were in full control of the situation.
Prison officials were alerted when some members of the “Revolutionaries” faction of the gang failed to return to their cells, said Eugenio Chicas, the communications secretary for the presidency.
Security agents and riot police found their bodies among some garbage bins, added Chicas, labeling it “a purge.”
“There has been an internal confrontation,” Chicas said.
The Directorate General of Prisons said on Twitter that it was “presumed to be an act of purification among gang members.”
The deaths underline how gang violence has made El Salvador one of the most dangerous countries in the world. On Wednesday, police said there were at least 125 murders in just three days in the country, a staggering toll even by El Salvador’s standards.
“These are worrisome numbers. These are Salvadorans who are dying. Regardless of who is a gang member or not,” National Police chief Mauricio Ramirez said.
There were 3,332 murders between January and June, up from 2,191 a year earlier, government data show.
The Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18 (M-18) gangs have an estimated 70,000 members in El Salvador, 10,000 of whom are behind bars.
The gangs emerged in the 1980s in Latino neighborhoods in Los Angeles. They arrived in Central America when the US deported thousands of immigrants who had fled there to escape civil wars that had gripped the region in the late 20th century.
Criminal gangs have been pressuring the government to include them in a commission examining ways to stem endemic urban violence for which these same groups are, to a large extent, responsible.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS