SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) – President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador pledged on Tuesday that his authorities will “intensify” already robust efforts to fight gangs after three police officers have been gunned down earlier within the day.
Bukele declared a state of emergency in March in an effort to rein in a spike in homicides, suspending some constitutional protections similar to free meeting.
“What is coming to (gang members) is way higher, and they’re going to pay dearly for having taken the lives of those three heroes,” Bukele advised a uncommon information convention.
He stated the officers who have been killed had been “ambushed” by members of the Barrio 18 gang.
The president didn’t specify how he would intensify what he calls a “war on gangs” past a bigger police presence throughout the Central American nation.
According to official knowledge, greater than 43,000 individuals have been arrested because the state of emergency started, which critics say is overly broad dragnet that denies detainees a good authorized course of.
Quotas imposed by police superiors have led to mass detentions and the arrest of harmless individuals, sources have advised Reuters. Groups together with Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Cristosal have additionally questioned the marketing campaign.
A combative Bukele shrugged off the criticism.
“Let them complain all they need,” he stated. “We are going to defend our individuals and we’re going to be sure that the lives of those brokers weren’t misplaced in useless.”
(Reporting by Nelson Renteria in San Salvador; Writing by Kylie Madry; Editing by David Alire Garcia, Robert Birsel)
