El Salvador: the dark side of President Nayib Bukele’s “war” against gangs

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s “war” against gangs has reduced murders to historic lows in what was one of the most violent war-free countries in the world, but out of 75,000 prisoners, there are about 7,000 released… innocent.

Amnesty International and the Movement of Victims of the Regime (Movir) denounce. “arbitrary arrests” under the accusation of belonging to “illegal groups” (gangs), “attacks”, “torture” and “deaths” in prison, under an emergency regime in force since March 2022.

Sandra, Maricela, Josefina and Irma revealed to AFP the dark side of the offensive by Bukele, who proclaimed himself re-elected in last Sunday’s elections on the basis of his popular but controversial security policy.

Driving along a dusty road you reach Sandra Hernández’s wooden house, in El Rosario, 50 km from San Salvador. He has no electricity or water and lives there with his son and daughter, aged 17 and 13.

On the patio, in the shade of a tree, Hernández says her husband, José Medrano, was arrested by police on May 26, 2022 and never returned.

“They accused him of illegal groups. He had no tattoos, he was a day laborer,” said this 36-year-old woman, who seemed frail but courageous.

While in prison he developed kidney failure. The last time she saw him was during a video call someone secretly made while he was being taken to hospital for hemodialysis.

On March 26, 2023 they announced his death. “At the funeral home they told me the body had bruises. “We suspect he did not die of kidney failure.”Hernandez said.

His family lives with the help of a brother and what his son earns as a bricklayer.

“They are hiring humble, hard-working people; “Innocent people die, not members of criminal gangs.”lament.

Maricela Méndez was asleep when police took her from her home in Alta Vista, northeast of San Salvador, on July 19, 2022. Her children, then ages 11 and 7, remained with their grandmother.

“They accused me of being a criminal, “The police officer had a quota of five arrests.”he has declared.

Her partner abandoned her when she was imprisoned. A month after he was in prison, this was confirmed she had arrived pregnant. “I have to be strong (…), my children depend on me,” she says she thought.

He was in three prisons. “They punished us. I slept on the floor, ate tortillas and drank water with sugar to satisfy my hunger,” she said. After legal procedures, he was granted parole.

“It was five months but it was a trauma because of everything I had to experience during the pregnancy. I was threatened with abortion,” she says looking at her 11-month-old baby, who she gave birth to two months after his birth. release from prison.

Méndez, 35, supports her children by working in a beauty salon. “My children have suffered trauma, when they see the police they cry, with the fear that they will take me away again. I feel that fear. “You live in fear,” she confessed.

With swollen eyes from not having slept well, next to the crib where her two and three and a half year old grandchildren sleep, Josefina Bonilla wipes her tears: “I don’t know anything about her.”

His daughter Stefany Santos, 24, was arrested on June 2, 2022. Bonilla suspects that due to problems with relatives of her children’s father, but they accused her of illegal grouping.

“He’s innocent. They take people away and don’t investigate,” said the woman, 63, in her modest home in Soyapango (east of San Salvador), showing a photo in which she is smiling with Stefany.

Without being able to work because he has to take care of the little ones, he helps himself with the groceries that a neighbor gives him. “It’s pretty hard. Only God knows what I’m doing,” he told her.

Stefany’s life was difficult. She was attacked by her partner, who according to Bonilla was killed over a debt.

“She’s asthmatic and has psychological problems. I’m worried she doesn’t have any medications,” she said, lamenting the fact that in a year and a half He only managed to bring three parcels of food and clothes into prison.

With Bukele’s policy “the righteous pay for the sinners”. “We find ourselves with mothers without children and children without fathers”summary.

In the room where she lives in Mejicanos, north of San Salvador, Irma García, 42, speaks without fear so as not to feel helpless.

“They kidnapped him. Since they took him I haven’t been able to see him or talk to him anymore. “I don’t know if he’s alive.”he tells AFP, showing the photo of the young man with the blue helmet and orange t-shirt.

Isaías Galicia was about to turn 18 when he was arrested on June 7, 2022 in the mechanical workshop where he worked.

“My son is not part of a gang, he has no tattoos, he has not hurt anyone”says this woman with a sad look, who says that the arrest was caused by an anonymous call.

García was widowed years ago, works as an apartment cleaner and has three other children, aged 13, 15 and 21. After the arrest, the stigmatized family was kicked out of another guesthouse where they lived.

“I live in fear that they will tell me they killed him inside. They should have arrested the gang members. But they took (innocent) young people, they took away their dreams, their future… like my son,” she complained in the darkness of his house.

AFP agency