The decree, approved by the majority, states that “emergency rule is being imposed throughout the national territory due to serious disturbances of public order by criminal groups.”
Emergency law restricts the freedom of assembly, the inviolability of correspondence and communications, and allows arrests without warrants.
El Salvador recorded Saturday as the most violent day in its recent history, with 62 homicides, an extension of the violence that began Friday, the National Civil Police (PNC) confirmed today.
While it was expected that an extraordinary full session of the Legislative Assembly would begin with a vote on the emergency rule, the PNC officialized the data already presented by unofficial sources.
Naeem Bukhele on Saturday took to Twitter to urge Congress to impose an emergency rule at a time when the country’s killings have been on the rise since Friday, blamed on ‘gangs’.
“I urge the AsambleaSV (Legislature) to issue an emergency rule today in accordance with Article 29 of the Republican Constitution,” the president wrote on Twitter.
The increase in homicides this weekend reached 76 in two days, up from 14 on Friday.
The closest to the 62 homicides recorded on Saturday was the 51 homicides in a single day in August 2015, the country that has experienced its deadliest year since the end of the Civil War (1980-1992).
“We will not back down from this war against gangs and we will not rest until the perpetrators of these events are arrested and brought to justice,” PNC wrote on Twitter.
This “war” logo was adopted by government officials such as Defense Minister Gustavo Villadoro.
After breaking the ceasefire promoted by Naib Pukele’s predecessor and former President Mauricio Funes (2009-2014), he adopted the strategy of direct confrontation with the ‘gangs’.
November 2021 saw a sharp rise in El Salvador killings, resulting in more than 40 deaths in three days.
In those days, the sudden increase in killings in those days, Bukhel spoke on the charge of allegedly violating a “peace” with ‘gangs’.
Without going into details or providing evidence, Buhl previously blamed the increase in killings on “dark forces working to repeat the past” and promised his government would “not allow it”.
In December 2021, the US Treasury Department granted MS13 (the abbreviated name of the ‘gang’ Mara Salvatorezca, which began in the 1980s, to “secret transactions” created by the war-torn Salvadoran civil society, which operates mainly in the United States and Central America).