El Salvador closed 2024 with a record low of 114 homicides, attributed to President Nayib Bukele’s ongoing state of emergency that has significantly empowered government forces in the battle against gang violence. This marks a dramatic decline from 6,656 homicides in 2015 and reflects a substantial crackdown on street gangs, leading to over 83,000 arrests but also creating lingering civil rights concerns.
“El Salvador closes 2024 with a homicide rate of 1.9 per 100,000 inhabitants, consolidating itself, indisputably, as the safest country in the Western Hemisphere, after having been the most unsafe country in the world,” Bukele wrote in a year-end X post. “In addition, December 2024 becomes the safest month in the entire history of our country. If every month of the year had been like this last one, the homicide rate would be 0.2, putting us in a position to compete for the title of the safest country in the world. ”
El Salvador cierra el 2024 con una tasa de 1.9 homicidios por cada 100,000 habitantes, consolidándose, indiscutiblemente, como el país más seguro del Hemisferio Occidental, después de haber sido el país más inseguro del mundo.
Además, diciembre 2024 se convierte en el mes más… https://t.co/lquo7bLrHT
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) January 1, 2025
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As Valuetainment reported at this time last year, El Salvador’s murder rate in 2023 dropped by 70% after the security forces arrested 75,000 suspected gang members–approximately 1% of the country’s 6,600,000 people. Bukele’s state of emergency, which has remained in effect since a gang-related killing spree in 2022, permits the country’s police to easily pursue, arrest, and jail suspected gang members without trial. The suspects’ usual rights to a lawyer and court approval of detention have been suspended.
Per the Associated Press, “the gangs’ repressive control made it difficult and dangerous for residents to travel between neighborhoods, including for work. Now residents say they can walk their neighborhoods without fear.”
Despite the improvements in safety, civil rights organizations report concerning incidents, including 354 deaths in custody during the crackdown. International critics raise questions about the long-term implications of such concentrated power. Bukele’s party holds a supermajority in the Salvadoran Congress, and they have used this powerful position to extend the state of emergency month by month, indicating that they will continue doing so until their goals have been accomplished.
However, Bukele’s popularity remains high as Salvadorans feel safer, as evidenced by his landslide reelection in February 2024— a feat that should have been impossible given a constitutional ban on consecutive presidential terms.
Connor Walcott is the lead writer for Valuetainment.com. Follow Connor on X and look for him on VT’s “The Unusual Suspects.”
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