Nine months into a state of emergency declared by President Nayib Bukele to fight street gangs, El Salvador has seen more than 1,000 documented human rights abuses and about 90 deaths of prisoners in custody. And Bukele’s popularity ratings have soared.
For decades, El Salvador’s main street gangs, Barrio 18 and the MS-13, have extorted money from nearly everyone and taken violent revenge against those who don’t pay. The gangs, which have been estimated to count some 70,000 members, have long controlled swaths of territory and extorted and killed with impunity.
