El Salvador Perspectives

Last week the human rights group Cristosal released a 126 page report titled El silencio no es opción (Silence is not an option) which reviews torture, deaths, and the absence of justice under the ongoing State of Exception in El Salvador.  During the first two years of the State of Exception 79,211 persons were arrested, including 12,704 in the second year as the pace of detentions slowed down.  The new report from Cristosal is an important, and damning, account of what the Bukele government has been willing to do in its war on gangs. Cristosal based its findings on a study of 3,643 complaints Cristosal received since the beginning of the State of Exception; hundreds of interviews including testimonies of members of the police and armed forces regarding arbitrary detentions; analysis of the legal cases of 1,178 people detained and prosecuted under the exception regime; a sample set of the 7,742 women detained by the emergency regime; and investigation of 261 deaths of adults and four

Flooding in Olocuilta July 9 El Salvador Perspectives has been on vacation for the past month.  Here is a short summary of some of the major stories during that time. Flooding rains which impacted much of the country continue. Days of flooding rain began in mid-June over El Salvador and other parts of Central America as tropical weather systems impacted the region.  In El Salvador, at least 19 people died in floods, mudslides and other calamities due to the rain between June 14 and 19 with thousands forced to evacuate to government run shelters.  After that first week of flooding in mid-June, the country continued to be buffeted by more storms and rains.  Saturated soils meant that rainfall runoff quickly overran river banks or prompted trees to fall over.   The storms have continued in early July.   As of July 8, there were 8 government run shelters open housing 196 people.  A child drowned in flood waters over the weekend.  Beyond the damages to homes and infrastructure, many sma