Forty thousand children have seen one parent or both detained in President Nayib Bukele’s nearly two-year war on El Salvador’s gangs, according to the national social services agency
Bukele has extremely high levels of popular support in El Salvador. But the president is preparing for when the people grow tired: he has increased the ranks of the Armed Forces and is promising to double its size in five years
EL PAÍS visits the Terrorism Confinement Center, the maximum-security mega-prison that El Salvador’s president inaugurated a year ago amid the country’s war on gangs
Behind the bars of the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) are El Salvador’s most dangerous inmates: hitmen who have committed dozens of murders and are serving sentences of 700 years. Every cell is full, and the authorities refuse to specify the number of people incarcerated at this facility
The president has achieved results in terms of security, but now faces structural problems
The president pulverized the opposition in the elections and has all the necessary support to implement his policies
Nayib Bukele’s overwhelming victory has occurred in the context of a serious deterioration of the rule of law
The president says he has achieved a landslide victory in the elections after having put an end to the country’s violent gangs
An indefinite state of exception in El Salvador violates the fundamental rights of some in exchange for relative and temporary tranquility of others
The president of El Salvador began his political career as a small-town mayor, realizing his destiny for power.
Democracy is a concept so poorly explained, badly understood and, for many people in El Salvador, so useless, that it is easy to believe that elections like the one coming up on Sunday are free and democratic
Any Salvadoran citizen who is in the United States can vote online for the 2024 Election until February 4
A former Barrio 18 gang leader swindled a high-ranking police chief in a fake plot to have a Mexican drug cartel abduct Elmer Canales Rivera, alias ‘Crook,’ according to an investigation by ‘El Faro’
The president is set to be re-elected next Sunday thanks to his great popularity in the country, where he is esteemed for taking down the gangs despite the high cost to human rights
The violence sweeping the country has intensified after two criminals operating for the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels escaped prison
With 40 homicides per 100,000 people and crime rates at a historic high, the country hopes that President Daniel Noboa’s project will bring an end to the violence
In the last twelve months, we have witnessed the political and regulatory tightening of the worst impulses against migrants around the world. It will be difficult for us to reverse this drift
The leader has been granted leave for six months so that he can begin campaigning for the February 4 elections
Human rights organization Cristosal tallied 153 incarceration deaths during the first year of the state of emergency. No victim had yet been convicted, the group said
The winner is a 23-year-old communicologist and says she wants to work to promote mental health after suffering debilitating bouts of anxiety herself
Why bother with democracy when (according to the propaganda machine) all a country like El Salvador needs is the ‘right’ leadership?
Friday’s Board of Governors should ensure a transparent and fair selection process to appoint a leader capable of restoring confidence and transparency to the bank
The president of the Washington Office on Latin America notes that the strength of civil society and committed youth are encouraging signs in the region. This is despite the drop in the democratic model’s popularity, a trend that has been observed in numerous surveys
The Central American nation is pioneering a restorative system that prioritizes rehabilitation over prison
Almost half of countries have suffered setbacks in the democratic process in the last five years, according to the IDEA organization, which however highlights growing citizen participation
The Salvadoran leader is seeking a second term in office, despite the fact that it is expressly prohibited by the Constitution of the Central American country
Dozens of activists have been arrested and accused of being gang members in El Salvador, in what social organizations say is a politically motivated campaign