El Salvador’s security authorities have reportedly located and begun excavations in a clandestine grave left by the gangs in a town near the capital, where they buried their victims, according to a spokesperson for the Police Workers’ Movement (MTP). .
Marvin Reyes, representative of the MTP, confirmed the above and pointed out that “a clandestine grave is indeed being excavated” in an area known as Cumbres de San Bartolo, in the central municipality of Tonacatepeque.
He argued that in this area they had a “stronghold” of the “strongest” of the Barrio 18 gang, Sureños faction.and this discovery “is part of 51 tombs which have been located nationally in different departments”.
“There was already information and they started doing searches to locate the victims who had been executed and buried there by members of this gang,” he said in statements collected by Efe.
Reyes indicated that Salvadoran gangs, which the government says are operationally dismantled thanks to the emergency regime in force since March 2022, used these types of places to hide the bodies of their victims.
“In the country we suffer the consequences of the actions of gangs and this is a method they used to hide the bodies, bury them in clandestine cemeteries, to avoid them being located by the authorities and counted as homicides ” he said. said.
He argued that Thus, they prevented “the area from being filled with police, carrying out raids, searches and arrests.”.
Meanwhile, Idalia Zepeda, from the Salvadoran Association for Human Rights (ASDEHU), said: Efe that his organization “requested months ago that they carry out an inspection” and searches in the area.
“The prosecutor’s office has not communicated directly to us the conclusions it obtained or the progress made by the process,” the human rights defender said, calling for genetic samples to be taken from mothers wanted for having “a little truth and justice”. . “in these cases.”
The latest official public data on this subject shows around 150 clandestine cemeteries. of gangs observed since 2014 in various regions of the country, with more than 220 victims of homicidal violence.
In El Salvador, after Nayib Bukele came to power in 2019, the number of missing people, clandestine cemeteries and any type of violence were kept secret by security authorities, the national police and the attorney general’s office.
According to a survey by the Foundation for Law Enforcement Studies (Fespad), between 2019 and June 2022, 6,443 cases of missing persons were recorded, of which 2,400 were not located.
