Monthly Archives: February 2024
How El Salvador loves its ‘cool dictator’ who shut down the gangs – but at the cost of human rights Controversial Nayib Bukele is expected to win re-election by a crushing margin in Sunday’s presidential vote
For years the Mara Salvatrucha, one of the most violent street gangs on earth, brutally controlled all aspects of life in Italia, a verdant, working-class suburb of one-storey houses just outside San Salvador, El Salvador’s capital. Mirroring scenes in communities across the impoverished Central American nation of six million, Italia residents would cower at home as heavily-tattooed gang members robbed, extorted, raped and murdered at will. No more. The gang members are gone, most of them locked up, and the neighbourhood has come back to life, with locals even lingering in the streets and plazas…Read more …