Mejicanos massacre

Last updated

Mejicanos massacre
Aftermath of the Mejicanos massacre.jpeg
The burnt minibus the day after the massacre
Location Mejicanos, El Salvador
Date20 June 2010;14 years ago (2010-06-20)
7:30 – 8:00 p.m. (CST)
Target2 minibuses
Attack type
 Arson, mass shooting
Deaths19
Injured14–15
Perpetrators 18th Street gang
MotiveRevenge for the killing of an 18th Street gang member by MS-13
Convicted5

The Mejicanos massacre (Spanish : masacre de Mejicanos), also known as the Route 47 massacre (masacre de la ruta 47), [1] occurred on 20 June 2010 when members of the 18th Street gang (Barrio 18) attacked two minibuses in the Salvadoran city of Mejicanos, just northeast of the capital city of San Salvador. During the massacre, members of Barrio 18 shot at one minibus and burned a second, killing 19 people in total and injuring 14 or 15 more.

Contents

The Mejicanos massacre was committed by the 18th Street gang in revenge for the killing of member of Barrio 18 in Mejicanos by MS-13, one of Barrio 18's rivals, the day prior. Since 2011, a total of 5 individuals have been convicted for their roles in the Mejicanos massacre. The massacre, which Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes and the National Civil Police described as a terrorist attack, remains the deadliest attack committed by street gangs in El Salvador. [2] [3]

Background

Beginning in the 1990s, crime committed by street gangs became a major problem in El Salvador after many Salvadoran refugees from the country's civil war began to be deported from the United States. Many of these deported Salvadorans were members of street gangs, most notably Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and the 18th Street gang (Barrio 18). Gang violence between MS-13 and Barrio 18 resulted in El Salvador having one of the highest intentional homicide rates in the world. Other crimes committed by Salvadoran street gangs included kidnapping, extortion, and robbery. [4] : 1–2 

Attack

On 19 June 2010, members of MS-13 killed a member of Barrio 18 known as "Crayola" in a shootout and subsequently fled the scene on a minibus operated by bus route 47. [2] The shootout occurred in the Jardín borough of Mejicanos, [5] a city just northeast of the country capital city of San Salvador. Barrio 18 sought to exert revenge against MS-13 by targeting the same bus route that MS-13 used to flee the scene. [2]

At 7:30 p.m. on 20 June 2010, members of the Barrio 18 Revolucionarios clique [6] shot at a minibus operated by bus route 47 in Mejicanos, killing the driver and a passenger in the process. Around 15 minutes later, another group of Barrios 18 members forced their way onto a different route 47 minibus and forced the driver to drive to the location where "Crayola" was killed. There, gang members shot at the minibus' passengers and then proceeded to douse the minibus' entrance and center hallway with gasoline. The gang members proceeded to set the bus on fire and shot at any passengers attempting to escape through the windows. [2] [7]

Victims of the attack were transported to the nearby Zacamil Hospital. [3] In total, 19 people died in the Mejicanos massacre; 2 died in the first minibus attack, and 17 died in the second. [lower-alpha 1] A further 14 or 15 people were serious injured. Those who died were killed either by the fire itself, asphyxiation, or the gang members' gunfire. [1] [3] [9] The first minibus attack was committed in order to divert the attention of the National Civil Police from the second attack. [2]

Aftermath

Reactions

On 21 June 2010, Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes told journalists that "it shocks me, yesterday's event has no comparison with other events... it seems to me an act that seeks to generate terror, it is an act of pure terrorism" ("a mí me estremece, el hecho de ayer no tiene comparación con otros hechos… me parece un acto que busca generar terror, es un acto de terrorismo puro"). [3] The National Civil Police labeled the massacre as a terrorist attack. [7] On 23 June, Funes stated that repression was necessary to combat gang violence in El Salvador. [10] In a direct response to the Mejicanos massacre, the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador passed the "Law Prohibiting Maras, Gangs, Groups, Associations, and Organizations of Criminal Nature", which was drafted by Funes, on 1 September. Both MS-13 and Barrio 18 organized a public transportation strike in an attempt to force the Legislative Assembly to repeal the law to no avail. The law, which increased prison sentences for gang members, remained in effect until the beginning of the 2012–2014 Salvadoran gang truce. [4] : 4–6 

Prosecution of assailants

According to El Faro journalist Carlos Martínez, the attack was not planned by Barrio 18 and was instead spontaneously committed by some of its members. He also reported that some of those who committed the attack were killed by the gang as a punishment for attracting police attention to Barrio 18. [2]

On 21 June 2010, the National Civil Police announced the arrests of eight gang members who were suspected of being involved in the massacre, three of whom were minors. [1] On 8 November 2011, Juan Antonio Borja Alvarado and Éver Alexis Martínez were sentenced to 66 years imprisonment for their role in the massacre. Rafael García Barbero was also sentenced to 3 years imprisonment for being an accessory to the attack. [10] On 27 September 2013, Gustavo Ernesto López Huezo was sentenced to 66 years and 8 months imprisonment for being the massacre's mastermind. He was convicted of aggravated homicide, attempted homicide, and aggravated damage. The court determined that López Huezo was the one responsible for forcing the driver to drive the bus to the site of the massacre, that he was the one that organized the procurement of the gasoline used in the massacre, and that he subsequently murdered the driver with a .38 revolver. "Crayola" was López Huezo's brother-in-law. [3] [10] In March 2016, Carlos Oswaldo Alvarado was sentenced to 410 years imprisonment for his role in setting the minibus on fire. [5] On 9 July 2021, the National Civil Police arrested four more gang members supposedly involved in the Mejicanos massacre. [11]

Similar attacks

In February 2011, Barrio 18 committed a similar attack on a bus which killed seven people. Salvadoran authorities believed that this attack was committed in order to prove the gang's worthiness to Los Zetas, a Mexican paramilitary group and drug cartel which was at the time expanding its operations into El Salvador. [12] In April 2019, gang members shot at two minibuses operated by route 6 in Mejicanos, injuring 4 people and forcing the bus route to briefly suspend operations. [13]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ In the second minibus attack, 13 people died at the scene and 4 subsequently in hospital in the days following the attack. [3] [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">El Salvador</span> Country in Central America

El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is San Salvador. The country's population in 2023 was estimated to be 6.5 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Armed Forces of El Salvador</span> Combined military forces of El Salvador

The Armed Forces of El Salvador are the official governmental military forces of El Salvador. The Forces have three branches: the Salvadoran Army, the Salvadoran Air Force and the Navy of El Salvador.

The Sombra Negra, also known as El Clan de Planta, are death squad groups based in El Salvador, allegedly composed mostly of police and military personnel, that target criminals and gang members for vigilante justice. The name first appeared around December 1989 in the Department of San Miguel. By April 1995, the group had stated that it had killed seventeen persons, claiming that those killed were criminals or members of gangs. These vigilante groups are based in El Salvador. The government of El Salvador insists the groups are not under its control.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mejicanos</span> Municipality in San Salvador Department, El Salvador

Mejicanos is a San Salvador municipality in the San Salvador department of El Salvador.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MS-13</span> Transnational criminal gang

Mara Salvatrucha, commonly known as MS-13, is an international criminal gang that originated in Los Angeles, California, in the 1980s. Originally, the gang was set up to protect Salvadoran immigrants from other gangs in the Los Angeles area. Over time, the gang grew into a more traditional criminal organization. MS-13 has a longtime rivalry with the 18th Street gang.

José Domingo Monterrosa Barrios was a military commander of the Armed Forces of El Salvador during the Salvadoran Civil War. He was responsible for ordering the El Mozote massacre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nayib Bukele</span> President of El Salvador since 2019

Nayib Armando Bukele Ortez is a Salvadoran politician and businessman who has been the 81st president of El Salvador since 1 June 2019. As a member of the Nuevas Ideas political party, Bukele is the first Salvadoran president since 1989 who was not elected as a candidate of one of the country's two major political parties: the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) or the left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), of which Bukele had previously been a member.

On the night of 19 April 2019 in the city of Minatitlán, Veracruz, Mexico, 14 people were killed, including a one-year-old baby, while they were celebrating a birthday party for a 52-year-old woman, when the assailants asked for "La Becky", the manager of a gay bar in Minatitlán and they started shooting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Death squads in El Salvador</span> 1960s–1990s paramilitary groups in El Salvador

Death squads in El Salvador were far-right paramilitary groups acting in opposition to Marxist–Leninist guerrilla forces, most notably of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), and their allies among the civilian population before, during, and after the Salvadoran Civil War. The death squads committed the vast majority of the murders and massacres during the civil war from 1979 to 1992 and were heavily aligned with the United States-backed government.

Events in the year 2021 in El Salvador.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salvadoran gang crackdown</span> Ongoing large-scale arrests of alleged gang members in El Salvador

The Salvadoran gang crackdown, known in El Salvador as the State of Exception or the War Against the Gangs, began on 27 March 2022 in response to a series of homicides committed by criminal gangs between 25 and 27 March 2022 which killed 87 people. After the killings, the Salvadoran government declared a state of emergency that suspended several constitutional rights and enabled the government to launch mass arrests of suspected gang members. The crackdown and state of emergency have since been extended 31 times as of 4 October 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terrorism Confinement Center</span> Prison in El Salvador

The Terrorism Confinement Center is a maximum security prison located in Tecoluca, El Salvador. The prison was built in late 2022 amidst a large-scale gang crackdown in El Salvador and was opened by the Salvadoran government in January 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blockade of the Cabañas Department</span> Salvadoran military operation

The blockade of the Cabañas Department was a military operation in El Salvador during the Salvadoran gang crackdown which started on 1 August 2023, when Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele announced that 7,000 soldiers of the Armed Forces of El Salvador (FAES) and 1,000 police officers of the National Civil Police (PNC) had surrounded the department of Cabañas to capture gang members.

The Territorial Control Plan is an ongoing Salvadoran security and anti-gang program. The program consists of six phases and a potential seventh phase if phases one through six are unsuccessful. In 2019, the Salvadoran government estimated that the Territorial Control Plan would cost US$575.2 million in total.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1975 Salvadoran student massacre</span> 1975 massacre in El Salvador

The 1975 Salvadoran student massacre occurred during the waning years of El Salvador's military dictatorships and was an important event in the buildup to the country's civil war. This massacre of an unknown number of student demonstrators was led by then-President Colonel Arturo Armando Molina and General Carlos Humberto Romero and took place in San Salvador, the country's capital, during the events of the Miss Universe beauty pageant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gustavo Villatoro</span> Salvadoran politician

Héctor Gustavo Villatoro Funes is a Salvadoran politician who currently serves as the Minister of Justice and Public Security. He was appointed by President Nayib Bukele in 2021. During Villatoro's term, he has overseen the Salvadoran gang crackdown which has since led to the arrests of over 74,000 alleged gang members as of 7 December 2023.

The Texis Cartel was a Salvadoran criminal organization which specialized in drug trafficking operations. The cartel transported drugs manufactured by Colombian drug cartels through northern El Salvador towards North America. The Texis Cartel was allegedly founded in the 1990s by businessman José Adán Salazar Umaña, politician Juan Umaña Samayoa, and businessman Roberto Herrera. The cartel bribed Salvadoran law enforcement officers and judicial officials to help its leaders evade identification by Salvadoran authorities.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Baires Quezada, Rodrigo (21 June 2010). "PNC Detiene a Ocho Pandilleros por Masacre de la Ruta 47" [PNC Detains Eight Gang Members for the Route 47 Massacre]. El Faro (in Spanish). Retrieved 20 June 2024.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 González Díaz, Marcos (20 June 2020). "Cómo fue la Masacre del Microbús en Mejicanos, el Ataque Más Sangriento de las Maras de El Salvador en el que 17 Pasajeros Murieron Carbonizados" [What Was the Microbus Massacre Like in Mejicanos, the Bloodiest Attack by the Gangs of El Salvador in Which 17 Passengers Burned to Death]. BBC Mundo (in Spanish). Retrieved 20 June 2024.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "La Masacre de Mejicanos que Sacudió al País Hace 10 Años" [The Mejicanos Massacre that Shook the Country 10 Years Ago]. El Mundo (in Spanish). 20 June 2020. Retrieved 20 June 2024.
  4. 1 2 Gutiérrez, Norma C. (December 2012). "El Salvador – Gang Violence" (PDF). Library of Congress . Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 September 2018. Retrieved 20 June 2024.
  5. 1 2 Orellana, Jessica (20 June 2022). "Las Dolorosas Imágenes del Ataque Más Criminal de la Pandilla 18 Contra Pasajeros de un Microbús" [The Painful Images of the Most Criminal Attack by Barrio 18 Against Minibus Passengers]. El Diario de Hoy (in Spanish). Retrieved 20 June 2024.
  6. ↑ Morales, David (20 June 2024). "A 14 Años de la Masacre Cometida por Pandilleros en un Microbús de Mejicanos, Pdte. Bukele: «Nunca Olvidemos de Dónde Venimos, para JAMÁS Regresar a Ese Pasado tan Oscuro, Que se Había Vuelto Nuestro Día a Día»" [14 Years Since the Massacre Committed by Gang Members in a Mejicanos Minibus, President Bukele: "We Will Never Forget Where We Came From, to NEVER Return to that Very Dark Past, That Had Become Our Day to Day"]. La Noticia SV (in Spanish). El Salvador. Retrieved 20 June 2024.
  7. 1 2 Valencia, Roberto (21 June 2010). "La Policía Salvadoreña Tipifica como Terrorismo las Masacres en Dos Autobuses Urbanos" [The Salvadoran Police Classifies the Massacres on Two Urban Busses as Terrorism]. El Mundo (in Spanish). San Salvador, El Salvador. Retrieved 20 June 2024.
  8. ↑ Murcia, David (21 June 2010). "15 Pasajeros Muertos en Ataque a Microbuses en Mejicanos" [15 Passengers Dead in Attack on Minibuses in Mejicanos]. El Faro (in Spanish). Retrieved 20 June 2024.
  9. ↑ Beltrán Luna, Jorge (20 June 2016). "Hoy se Cumplen Seis Años del Asesinato de 17 Personas Dentro de Microbús" [Today Marks Six Years Since the Murder of 17 People Inside a Minibus]. El Diario de Hoy (in Spanish). Retrieved 20 June 2024.
  10. 1 2 3 "66 Años de Cárcel para Autor de Masacre en Mejicanos" [66 Years Imprisonment for Author of the Mejicanos Massacre]. La Prensa Gráfica (in Spanish). 27 September 2013. Retrieved 20 June 2024.
  11. ↑ "Capturan a Sujetos Implicados en Calcinar a 17 Personas Dentro de Microbús en Mejicanos" [They Captured Suspects Implicated in Burning 17 People Inside a Minibus in Mejicanos]. Contra Punto (in Spanish). 9 July 2021. Retrieved 20 June 2024.
  12. ↑ Wilkinson, Tracy (22 March 2011). "El Salvador Becomes Drug traffickers' 'Little Pathway'". Los Angeles Times . Dulce Nombre de María, El Salvador. Retrieved 20 June 2024.
  13. ↑ Calderón, Beatriz; Hernández, Francisco (16 April 2019). "Ruta 6 A Reanudará Servicio Hasta el Miércoles por Ataques de Pandilleros en Mejicanos" [Route 6 to Suspend Services Until Wednesday due to Attacks by Gang Members in Mejicanos]. La Prensa Gráfica (in Spanish). Retrieved 20 June 2024.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.