San Salvador, March 1. The President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, assured this Wednesday evening, in response to an exchange of messages on Twitter with his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, that the number of homicides in the Central American country “is now in the single digits “.
The above is in response to a proposal by Petro for an “international forum” to compare the two countries’ experiences in reducing homicides, after the Central American leader wanted the Andean nation to lower those rates.
“Our experience: from more than 100 homicides per 100,000 people, we are now in the single digits. And the decrease has been rapid, because the dead do not recover,” published Bukele.
Earlier, Petro assured in a government act that “terrible photos – I cannot enter other countries – of the concentration camp in El Salvador, full of young people, thousands and thousands, imprisoned that he gives chills”.
This refers to the fact that the Bukele government transferred 2,000 suspected gang members to the Containment Center for Terrorism (CECOT), a maximum security prison for 40,000 prisoners.
In this regard, the Salvadoran president told Petro that “results weigh more than rhetoric”.
“I want Colombia to succeed in bringing down the homicide rate, like we Salvadorans have done. God bless you,” Bukele posted on Twitter.
In images released by the Salvadoran government in recent days, the prisoners can be seen, shirtless, with the characteristic tattoos of the gangs.
“I think there are people who definitely love it, seeing young people in prison and they believe it’s safety and popularity skyrocketing, no doubt,” said PetroŽ, who has added that “the president of El Salvador is He is proud because he succeeded in reducing the homicide rate by starting, he says, by subjugating the gangs who are today in these prisons, which in my opinion are horrible “.
El Salvador has been under an emergency regime since March 2022, which suspends constitutional guarantees, after an escalation in homicides generated, according to an investigation by local newspaper El Faro, due to the alleged violation of an agreement with gangs. ECE
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