On Jan. 27, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele announced via Twitter that the country had gone 48 hours without a reported homicide—a significant feat. In El Salvador, gangs have exerted control over entire communities for decades through extortion, disappearances, and frequent killings. “There is still much to do, two days without homicides doesn’t mean that El Salvador doesn’t still suffer from violence and delinquency,” Bukele wrote. “But two consecutive days without homicides was something unthinkable before, when we were the murder capital of the world.”
El Salvador has made notable advances in reducing homicides since it earned the undesirable title of deadliest country outside a war zone in 2015 with more than 6,600 murders in a country of almost 6.5 million people. Five years later, the country closed out 2020 with the lowest homicide rate in more than two decades with 1,322 homicides, according to government statistics.
