Guatemala interoceanic corridor launches tokenization in El Salvador

For more than two decades, schools in El Salvador were white of violence and recruitment by gangs, leaving a devastating balance among the student population.

One of the most remembered episodes occurred on July 15, 2021, when four students were killed 500 meters from the El Anonal school, in Turin, Ahuachapán. The crime reflected the daily siege that young people suffered, who were intimidated or recruited for activities such as drug trafficking and extortion collection.

According to records of the National Civil Police, the Prosecutor’s Office and the Institute of Legal Medicine, between 2010 and the first quarter of 2019, the gangs murdered 481 students. In 2011 alone, the most violent year, there were 139 victims, an average of three students per week.

Violence also impacted education. In 2014, more than 100,000 students deserted due to insecurity, and in 2015 the Ministry of Education registered 13,000 direct defections for violence and 15,000 migrations of students and their families.

The impact also reached teachers: in 2011, at least 362 requested transfers for threats, and the Legislative Assembly approved emergency measures to relocate teachers at risk.

With the implementation of the territorial control plan and the exception regime in 2022, the authorities reported a drastic reduction of homicides and crimes inside and around educational centers. President Nayib Bukele then said that he had “broken the vicious circle of gangs”, although he warned that the challenge is now investing in the future to prevent violence from resurfaceing again.

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