State of emergency declared after 62 killed

SAN SALVADOR: El Salvadoran lawmakers on Sunday declared a state of emergency, the president of the Legislative Assembly said, curtailing civil liberties and expanding police power as the country faces a wave of gang-related bloodshed that has left dozens dead in just two days.

Gang violence has soared in El Salvador, with police reporting that 62 people were killed on Saturday alone.

According to official figures, 12 of the killings took place in the central department of La Libertad, with the capital San Salvador and the western department of Ahuachapan recording nine each. The rest were distributed across the country’s remaining departments.

Hours earlier, police and the military arrested several leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang over the spate of killings.

“We will not back down in this war against gangs, we will not rest until the criminals responsible for these acts are captured and brought to justice,” the country’s National Civil Police posted on Twitter.

In response to the surge in violence, President Nayib Bukele asked the legislature controlled by his ruling party to approve a state of emergency, under which certain freedoms are curtailed.

Lawmakers did so early on Sunday morning, in a decree that “declares an emergency regime throughout the national territory derived from serious disturbances to public order by criminal groups”.

The declaration - approved by a large majority - restricts free assembly, the inviolability of correspondence and communications, and allows for arrests without a warrant.

“We approve the #emergencyregime that will allow our Government to protect the lives of Salvadorans and confront criminality head-on,” Legislative Assembly president Ernesto Castro said in a tweet.

“Since yesterday, we have had a new spike in homicides, something that we had worked so hard to reduce,” Bukele said in a statement posted on Twitter by Congress president Ernesto Castro.