In 2023, the State was positioned as one of the main violators of human rights in El Salvador within the framework of an emergency regime, in force since March 2022 to combat gangs, mainly in situations related to forced displacement, violations of freedom and life, according to a report released this Wednesday, April 17.
Representatives of the University Observatory of Human Rights (OUDH) released their annual report on the situation of rights in the Central American country in 2023.
“It is worrying how serious it is that, based on the emergency regime, the State is the main agent generating displacement, affecting integrity and life,” said Gabriela Santos, director of the Human Rights Institute of the Central American University. (Idhuca), of which the OUDH is a part.
El Salvador has been under an emergency regime, which suspends constitutional rights, since March 2022 after an escalation of homicides attributed to gangs and which has left more than 79,200 arrests and more than 6,000 complaints of rights violations.
As explained by Jorge Rodríguez, coordinator of the OUDH, the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) registered an increase in victims of forced displacement of 78.5% in 2023, with 2,099 affected.
However, he indicated that the PGR did not detail the total number of events that led to or alleged perpetrators, of which data from three humanitarian organizations point to agents of the state forces.
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According to the complaints received by the Passionist Social Service (SPASS), the Cristosal organization and Idhuca, police officers are reported in 72.8% of the cases and members of the Armed Forces in 3.3%.
Rodríguez also pointed out that the lethality of state forces skyrocketed by 134%, going from a rate of 1.61% in 2022 to 3.78%, while 11% of violent deaths would have occurred at the hands of police and soldiers in alleged confrontations.
For its part, the Office of the Attorney General for the Defense of Human Rights (PDDH) received at least 26 complaints of extrajudicial executions in 2023.
In 2023, Idhuca registered at least 123 cases of short-term forced disappearances, in which the relatives do not know the whereabouts and situation of the detainees due to lack of official information.
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For Santos, currently in El Salvador “there are no guarantees of any kind and this is linked to the nonexistence of the national human rights system,” to which is added concern about the role of the Prosecutor’s Office.
He recalled that the attorney general, Rodolfo Delgado, decided to archive at least 142 cases of deaths of people detained within the framework of the exception regime, which currently totals more than 200 deaths in prisons.
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