The government declared a state of emergency and closed the prisons after 87 murders committed on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. In comparison, there were 79 homicides throughout February. Authorities have blamed gang members for the killings, and on Monday authorities said soldiers and police raided gang strongholds around San Salvador. President Nayib Bukele wrote that the detainees would not be released and ordered that food for gang detainees in Salvador prisons be reduced to two meals a day, apparently to extend current food supplies to feed the new detainees. “Do not think that they will be released,” Boukele wrote on his Twitter account. “We will eat the same food we give now (to the prisoners).” “And if the international community is worried about its angels, they should come and bring them food, because I am not going to take money out of the budget from the schools to feed these terrorists,” the president wrote. El Salvador’s conference accepted Bouquet’s request to declare a state of emergency in the early hours of Sunday amid a wave of assassinations. The state of emergency suspends the constitutional guarantees of freedom of assembly and relaxes the rules of detention for up to thirty days, but could be extended. The decree allows suspects to be detained without a lawyer for up to 15 days and allows police to search mobile phones and messages. The homicides appeared to be linked to the country’s notorious street gangs, which effectively control many of the capital’s neighborhoods. The National Police said they had arrested five leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13, who claimed to have ordered the killings over the weekend. Boukele had previously ordered the head of the country’s prisons to immediately lock the detained gangs 24/7 in their cells. “They should not even go out on the atrium” of the prisons, Buchele wrote, adding “a message to the gangs: because of your actions, now your boys will not see a single ray of sunlight.” While Bukele has tried to show a tough stance on crime, the country’s extremely powerful street gangs have proved to be a double-edged sword. “We must remind the people of El Salvador that what is happening now is due to the negligence of those who protected the criminals,” the conservative Arena party said in a statement. This was an obvious reference to a December report by the US Treasury Department that said the Bukele administration had secretly negotiated a truce with gang leaders. The U.S. government claims that the Bukele administration has purchased gang support with financial benefits and privileges for its imprisoned leaders, including prostitutes and cell phones. Boukele categorically denied the allegations. The explosive allegations cut to the heart of one of Bukele’s most notorious successes in power: a dip in the homicide rate in the country. Tensions have also risen between Boukele and the Biden government. After the new Congress ousted the attorney general and the judges of the constitutional section of the Supreme Court in May, the US government expressed concern about the direction of the country. Bukele is extremely popular. It entered a political vacuum left by discredited traditional parties from the left and right.
