Media in the Central American country of El Salvador reported recently that dozens of families in the rural community of El Llano abandoned their homes after gang members (locally known as maras) threatened that they were going to “wipe out the community” in retribution for sheltering members of a rival gang.
Two days later, residents of Mejicanos, a working class town north of San Salvador, told police officers and journalists that they had received death threats from gang members. A dozen families decided to leave their dwellings.
These and other cases suggest the existence within El Salvador of a growing number of people who have been displaced by violence, not unlike a situation of war. It’s a sad reality in a country, which, 23 years ago, ended a 10-year conflict that left an estimate of 75 thousand people dead. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who attended the anniversary ceremonies celebrating the end of that bloodshed, remarked that insecurity is one of the challenges that still remain in El Salvador.
Last year, 70,000 children and adolescents from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras fled to the southern border of the United States. According to numerous testimonies, a large portion of them undertook this journey to escape from the maras.
[For more of this story, written by Róger Lindo, go to http://newamericamedia.org/201...start-with-youth.php]
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