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As the week got started, pupils at Reino de Suecia school heard a shooting going on. The school is located in the San Roque quarter, in the municipality of Mejicanos, about 21 kilometers north from San Salvador, the Salvadoran capital city. In a cobblestoned street surrounded by composite construction houses, dusty buildings and walls which make the place a high-risk landslide and mudslide zone in winter time, three unidentified men shot a 20 year-old bus driver. Twenty-four hours later, police detectives were back in San Roque investigating the murder of another young man on a public transport minibus.
The two homicides in the San Roque quarter are to be added to the 3.375 violent deaths which, according to National Civil Police (PNC) data, have been registered in El Salvador between January and November 7, 2017. On average, eleven people are murdered every day. This is a homicide epidemic and the Salvadoran government is trying to face it by increasing taxes to fund a new tough-line policy against gangs. But insecurity in the streets remains. "I feel that nothing has changed. The homicides continue and I do not hear anyone say that the gangs have lowered their extortion quotas", says Genaro Ramírez, a local transport company manager.
