El Salvador is still associated in many people’s minds with the 12-year-long civil war between rightwing government forces (backed by the US) and leftwing FMLN guerrillas, which ended in 1992 but left 70,000 people dead. The relative calm since – and the election as president of former FMLN rebel Salvador Sánchez Cerén, who took office in June 2014 – is somewhat misleading, however.
With an average of nearly 30 homicides per day, El Salvador could soon overtake Honduras as the most violent country in the world (excluding warzones such as Syria). Since a 2012 truce between the country’s two main gangs (MS-13 and Barrio 18) began to fall apart in 2014, El Salvador has experienced its highest number of murders since the civil war.
