Soldiers, police cordoned off a neighborhood in El Salvador, searching for gang members

More than 2,000 soldiers and 500 police surrounded a residential area on the outskirts of El Salvador's capital on Monday in an effort to eliminate the remnants of gangs that the president said were trying to set up shop in the area.

“There is a group of gang members hiding. We have created a security fence around the area … to get all the gang members out of the area,” Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele wrote on the X website.

Police surrounded the San Marcos area with a military fence, setting up checkpoints to prevent gang members from escaping, Defense Minister René Francis Merino Monroy said.

The fence was the third of its kind to be installed in parts of San Salvador aimed at finding and arresting gang members still active in the country. In March, Bukele ordered the installation of similar barriers in the northern part of the country, which he said would disband the Barrio 18 gang.

It is the latest setback in the ruling party leader's war against gangs, announced by Bukele following an outbreak of violence in March 2022.

Crackdown has fueled criticism of human rights

Bukele's government called for a “state of emergency” and revoked constitutional rights to arrest more than 1 percent of El Salvador's population on little evidence. The attack has sparked widespread criticism from human rights groups, raising fears about prison conditions and claiming many of those detained are innocent or have loose ties to gangs.

Some of his actions – such as seeking re-election despite the constitutional ban on presidents serving two consecutive terms – have raised concerns about democracy.

But the gang war has also hit hard with the Barrio 18 and MS-13 gangs that have long spread terror across much of the country, extorting money, killing defaulters, and trafficking drugs.

These measures led to a significant reduction in homicides and fueled the enthusiasm of the Bukele people.

Despite successfully declaring his war, the president has continued to extend the “state of emergency” for more than two years now, saying such measures are necessary to remove the remnants of El Salvador's gangs.