El Salvador was one of the countries with the highest murder rates for a long time. Violent gangs such as MS-13 and Barrio 18 have thrived for decades. However, recently, all that changed. Under President Nayib Bukele, the country has radically improved and it is now safer than Canada and the UK.
The secret of such a shift is an unprecedented push to eradicate organised crime. The authorities, in the opinion of human rights activists and experts, resorted to extremist measures, from mass arrests to intimidation and complete control over the prison system. Thousands of suspected criminal gang members were arrested under the state of emergency that has been in force in the country since 2022. Prisons are overcrowded, and conditions are cruel. The government has even built a colossal detention complex for 40,000 inmates.
The combination of intimidation, show of force and mass repression has had a rapid result: murders have gone down by leaps and bounds. El Salvador now has one of the lowest rates of violent crime in all of Central America.
Critics have accused Bukele of authoritarianism and human rights abuses. Mass arrests, trials and prison life shrouded in secrecy have raised a lot of debates. Despite outside criticism, more than 80% of Salvadorans continue to support Bukele, seeing him as the man who has finally brought security back to the country.
