El Salvador’s president assures his country has the lowest homicide rate in the Americas

El Salvador maintains the lowest homicide rate in the Americas to date with 1.8 per 100,000 inhabitants, highlighted President Nayib Bukele.

“El Salvador’s annualized homicide rate is 1.8 per 100,000 inhabitants. The lowest in all of the Americas, below that of Canada,” the president stated on his Twitter account.

Bukele took up a report from the National Civil Police (PNC) after midnight in which he reported that February 6 closed without homicides, the fifth day with that result this month and the fourth in a row.

PNC data indicate that the previous month of January was the safest in national history with 11 murders, a result he attributes to the war unleashed against the gangs or “maras” that maintained their control over numerous communities, especially in impoverished areas.

El Salvador closed 2022 with a homicide rate of 7.8 per 100,000 inhabitants, the lowest since records of this nature were kept at the end of the last century and a figure that authorities compare with 2015, when it rose to 105.

The government decreed a state of emergency on March 27 last year, and as part of an escalation in the war against gangs, the populous municipality of Soyapango and several communities in the capital are under military and police siege.

With information from Sputnik