Last month, 481 people were murdered in El Salvador, making March the country’s most deadly month in a decade as authorities struggle to cope with the collapse of a controversial gang truce.

An average of 16 people were killed every day in the country, which is the size of Massachusetts and has a population of 6.1 million, confirming El Salvador’s place as one of the world’s most dangerous places outside a war zone.

The death toll was 52% higher than in the same period in the previous year, and included the victims of six massacres, including eight people who were killed on 29 March at a truck stop just outside the capital, San Salvador, in a suspected dispute between transnational drug trafficking groups.

El Salvador had enjoyed a relative respite from violence after the Catholic church and the country’s previous government helped negotiate a truce between the country’s biggest street gangs, MS-13 and Calle 18, in February 2012.

The ceasefire almost halved the murder rate and raised hopes that the country might finally emerge from decades of violence, but the delicate peace started to collapse more than a year ago.

It was declared officially over by the police in March 2014, and the new leftist-FMLN president, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, ruled out further negotiations.

But the latest figures will be a bitter blow to Sánchez, who is trying to galvanise support for a radical new security strategy which focusses on social programmes, prison reform and crime prevention rather than more populist mano dura (iron fist) crackdowns.

Last month, Sánchez led hundreds of thousands of people in a march for “life, peace and justice”, as part of his call on the nation to unite against violence.

Raúl Mijango, a chief negotiator in the previous government, blames the worsening violence on the recent transfer of imprisoned gang leaders back into high-security jails. Revelations that some were moved into low-security institutions as part of the truce deal provoked widespread outrage last year.

In a television interview, Mijango Monday said: “The only thing that has worked is direct dialogue with the gangs… This [the violence] can be stopped in a matter of days… the path to peace must have inclusive dialogue.”

The recent spike also points to a bitter escalation in the confrontation between gang members and security forces. Almost 40 police officers were killed last year, and at least 17 have lost their lives this year.

In January, the director of the national police told rank and file officers to shoot criminals without fear of reprisals, and in the past week alone three hand grenades have been thrown at police stations, although it is not clear whom by.

“In a country with a history of extrajudicial executions by security personnel, it appears the police (and other institutions) have responded in a way that was entirely expected – greater use of force against suspected gang members,” Mike Allison, associate professor of political sciences at Scranton University, and author of the Central American Politics Blog, told the Guardian.



Salvadorean authorities have unequivocally blamed the carnage on the gangs, but drug traffickers have also contributed to the mayhem. Taking advantage of the country’s weak institutions and high levels of corruption, international cartels have helped transform El Salvador into an important staging post for illegal drugs heading north to the US.

Last month’s truck stop massacre bore the trademark signs of cartel involvement: the victims were reportedly killed with silenced pistols, and on the walls of a nearby house the letter “Z” was smeared in blood – an apparent reference to the feared Mexican Zetas cartel.

According to InsightCrime, a group which analyses organised crime in the Americas, the pattern of criminality in El Salvador is increasingly “taking on overtones of a low-intensity war”.