El Salvador war on gangs: 'Entire weeks without homicides' says president

El Salvador's President, Nayib Bukele, spoke in between some 14,000 soldiers gathered in a field near a military barracks on the outskirts of the town of San Juan Opico, 35 km west of San Salvador.

"I tell you, look at the country where before there were 20 or 30 deaths a day, where before it was common to find corpses on the ground and look at how many homicides there are now? Days, entire weeks without homicides," Bukele says, talking about his war on gangs that has led to tens of thousands of arrests and sparked criticism from rights groups.

During the event, Bukele also announced that police and soldiers will set up fences surrounding cities to search and arrest gang members.

The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, announced this that he will promote a kind of security cordon in different cities, deploying police and military personnel for this purpose, in order to surround gang members and facilitate the prison of criminals.

Bukele made the announcement in the presence of 14,000 soldiers, concentrated in a field adjacent to a barracks in the region of San Juan Opico, 35 kilometers from San Salvador. “What we are going to do in practice is to surround large cities and withdraw the terrorists who are there, without giving them the possibility of escape,” he said.

This war on drugs led by the populist leader in the country, which takes place amidst an authoritarian shift, has already arrested more than 58,000 people, also accumulating a series of accusations of human rights violations.