It was Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele who previously declared war on those gangs. The president had announced on November 23 that cities would be surrounded so that the army could search houses one by one and arrest gang members. Soyapango is the first city where this happens.
At dawn, soldiers and policemen were posted on all approaches to the city. Everyone who wants to enter or leave the city was checked. Law enforcement officers are tasked with arresting “all gang members who are left,” Bukele said, one by one.
About 58,000 suspected members of criminal gangs, the dreaded “maras”, have been arrested in El Salvador since President Bukele declared war on the gangs in late March. Soyapango has been considered an unsafe city for years because of those gangs. The measures taken by Bukele’s government have resulted in “a huge improvement in security,” Mayor Nercy Montano said earlier this week.