El Salvador: Military and Police Surround Town to Root Out MS-13 Gang Members

The infamous MS-13 gang has become so big of a threat that El Salvador has decided to call in the military to combat them. Now, 2,000 soldiers and police have surrounded the town of Comasagua in an effort to root out gang members.

Comasagua is located around 20 miles (30 km) southwest of the capital, San Salvador.

According to the Associated Press, this was a large-scale encirclement, with the government under President Nayib Bukele using even more heavy-handed tactics in dealing with MS-13. The entire town was closed off, and anybody entering or leaving the town was questioned and searched. Authorities are reportedly looking for gang members accused of killing.

President Nayib Bukele confirmed on his Twitter page that military and police have surrounded members of MS-13 inside the town.

President Nayib Bukele Invoking Emergency Powers Against Violent Street Gangs Like MS-13

Last March, MS-13 went on a rampage, with a killing spree that saw 87 people murdered between March 25 and 27. The majority of the casualties, 62 of them, were killed on March 26, making it the bloodiest day in El Salvador's recent history.

Following the incident, Bukele requested Congress to grant him extraordinary powers. The decree, which gets renewed every month, suspends several Constitutional rights, providing the police with more power to arrest and hold suspects.

This emergency decree has resulted in the arrest of 53,485 people, around 47,893 of whom were charged. According to a report by German news site DW, there are an estimated 70,000 gang members in the country, which has a population of almost 6.5 million.

Under the decree's state of exception, the rights temporarily suspended include the right of association, the right to be informed of the reason for an arrest, and access to a lawyer. The emergency powers also allow the government to intervene in the calls and mail of anyone they consider a suspect. It also extends holding persons without charges from three days to 15 days.

There have been reports that Bukele and MS-13 had an agreement, but the president is now hunting the gang after they broke that supposedly secret pact.

The United States Is Pressuring El Salvador to Extradite MS-13 Gang Leaders

According to Reuters, the U.S. State Department asked El Salvadoran authorities to "immediately" extradite leaders of MS-13 to the United States so they can stand trial there.

One of the gang leaders the United States has requested is Eliu Melgar, alias "Blue," whom the El Salvadoran government has been holding since 2018. He is wanted in the United States and is accused of allegedly ordering homicides and other crimes on the U.S. east coast.

Patrick Ventrell, the U.S. Charge d'Affaires to El Salvador, stated that for El Salvador's government to show how serious they are about reducing gang violence, they have to extradite the most dangerous leaders. It is noted that U.S. prosecutors already charged 14 leaders of MS-13 with terrorism back in January 2021.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

WATCH: The history of MS-13, from El Salvador to the U.S. - CBS News