El Salvador sends troops, police into streets amid killings

By MARCOS ALEMAN
Associated Press

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Combined patrols of soldiers and police have fanned out across the capital of El Salvador after a spate of killings left about 30 people dead in two days. El Salador’s homicide rate had dropped from the violent days of the mid-2010s, when 15 or 20 killings a day were routine. President Nayib Bukele on Thursday ordered troops into the streets of San Salvador, where they used armored cars to block the exits of some poor neighborhoods, while police went door to door searching for members of the country’s notorious street gangs. Bukele blames the killings on “dark forces who are working to return us to the past.”