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The government of The Savior took its efforts against the country’s powerful street gangs to another level by sending inmates into cemeteries to destroy gang members’ graves at a time of year when families often visit the graves of their loved ones. .
Armed with mallets and crowbarsinmates broke graves marked with “MS”, of the gang Mara Salvatruchain a suburb of San Salvador on Tuesday.
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The mayor of Santa Tecla, Henry Flores, said that crews destroyed nearly 80 headstones in the municipal cemetery and removed gang-related graffiti. “Our plan is to have no graffiti so people feel safe,” Flores said.
El Salvador has been under a state of emergency since the end of March. President Nayib Bukele requested and received special powers, which suspend some constitutional rights, after gangs murdered 62 people across the country in one day.
Since then, authorities have arrested more than 56,000 people for suspected gang ties. Non-governmental organizations have recorded several thousand human rights violations and at least 80 deaths in custody of people detained during the state of emergency.
Authorities had already painted or removed gang graffiti commonly seen in El Salvador’s neighborhoods, but destroying gang members’ graves was a new step. It occurred when some Salvadorans visited cemeteries for the Day of the Dead.
Holy button is located next to the capital San Salvador and has long been a stronghold of the Mara Salvatrucha gang.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, gatherings in cemeteries had been restricted until this year. This week, more people came to visit the graves as police and soldiers patrolled the cemeteries.
“There is a lot of happiness to be able to visit relatives who have died”said Juan Escamilla, who brought flowers to a relative’s grave Wednesday. “Before it was normal to see gang members inside the cemetery, but today there is no danger.”
Osiris Luna, El Salvador’s prison chief, said on Twitter that prisoners and police had destroyed tombstones belonging to various gangs in cemeteries in Santa Tecla and Colón, some 15 miles (24 kilometers) west of the capital.
Luna, who referred to the gang members as “terrorists,” said they did not deserve “any recognition, that’s why we destroyed all traces of these groups. In this country gangs no longer have a place.”
Subsequently, the National Police said on social platforms that residents of Candelaria de la Frontera in the department of Santa Ana, in western El Salvador, denounced that a grave in that town had a tombstone that referred to the MS-13 gang, so the police came immediately and destroyed it.
Source: Elcomercio
I, Ronald Payne, am a journalist and author who dedicated his life to telling the stories that need to be said. I have over 7 years of experience as a reporter and editor, covering everything from politics to business to crime.
