30-07-2015: Latin American Weekly Report

As a prelude to the string of murders, two microbuses were set ablaze over the weekend in a suburb of San Salvador, Ciudad Delgado, where the government launched its ‘Plan El Salvador Seguro’ (‘Plan for a Safe El Salvador’) just days earlier [WR-15-29]. Five bus drivers and a transport worker were then murdered by the early hours of 27 July. Private bus companies reacted by staging a ‘strike’, calling on the government to take urgent steps to improve the security situation. Transport chaos ensued in metropolitan San Salvador. Bus companies, transport authorities and government ministers gave differing figures of just how many bus routes were affected but in the region of 1,000 buses on 40 bus routes in greater San Salvador did not run. A further bus driver was killed for ‘defying’ the strike on 29 July.