2023-10-12 01:10:00
With rifles, helmets and bulletproof vests, some 4,000 soldiers and police surrounded part of the Salvadoran cities of Apopa and Soyapango this Wednesday (10/11/2023) to capture gang members, as ordered by President Nayib Bukele, who maintains a ” war” against those gangs.
Apopa, a city of 131,000 inhabitants located 13 km north of San Salvador, has had a strong presence of the violent Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18, as well as La Campanera, a populous community of Soyapango, on the northeastern outskirts of the capital, where In December, a military fence was deployed, which is now reinforced.
The president assured that the operation – similar to others carried out in the last two months in other cities – is part of the “Extraction” phase of the Territorial Control Plan, which has been carried out since 2019 and which seeks to put the members of the violent gangs.
Popotlán and Valle Verde are 2 of the 25 neighborhoods that make up the municipality of Apopa, the sixth most populated city in El Salvador and located 20 kilometers west of the capital. La Campanera belongs to the municipality of Soyapango, located a little more than 12 kilometers from San Salvador capital and which is the second most populated city in the Metropolitan Area of San Salvador – made up of 14 municipalities – and the third in the country.
The Minister of Defense, René Francis Merino, declared that the military fence “responds to a call from the population indicating that there are some gang members trying to reorganize” in the area. El Salvador maintains an emergency regime that it renewed almost a month ago for thirty days. “We are not going to stop until we capture the last remaining terrorist (gang member). We will not allow small remnants to regroup and take away the peace that has cost us so much,” Bukele stressed.
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