SAN SALVADOR, (Reuters) – William Hernandez, tired and aching, had just finished a 24-hour shift as a coroner examining more than a dozen corpses in the capital of El Salvador, victims of gang warfare that has made the Central American country one of the most violent in the world.
In more than 20 years at the National Forensics Institute, Hernandez has never dealt with so many violent deaths nor seen attacks as vicious in San Salvador, he said.
“There have always been violent deaths, but not like now. The increase has been incredible,” he said. “If you had one or two shots before, it’s now between 15 and 30. The last body I examined had 42 entry and exit wounds.”
Violence has risen steadily in El Salvador since a 2012 truce between the country’s two main gangs began to fall apart in 2014. Last year was the most violent on record, with a 70 percent increase in murders from the previous year and a surge in attacks by street gangs, said a civil servant.
