IRIN News

Exiled by force

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El Salvador is contending with an epidemic of gang violence. The small but densely populated Central American nation registered more homicides in 2015 than in any year during its protracted civil war, and young people are particularly vulnerable. Violent crime perpetrated by the “maras”, as the gangs are known, has claimed the lives of 7,500 young Salvadorans since mid-2014.