El Salvador: Murder-Free for One Day

The two most powerful drug gangs in El Salvador, Mara Salvatrucha and Mara 18, called a truce earlier this month and violence has dramatically decreased in the country. An official announcement has been made that last Saturday was El Salvador's first murder-free day in three years. This is the first day without killings since President Mauricio Funes took office in June 2009, when the country had an average of 12 murders per day. "After years where the number of murders reached alarming levels of up to 18 per day (in early 2012), we saw not one homicide in the country," said Fumes in a statement. Much of the violence in El Salvador is blamed on Mexican drug cartels that use the country as a transit point. According to United Nations data, El Salvador has one of the highest homicide rates in the world at 66 per 100,000 people.