El Salvador’s murder rate continues to rise dramatically, with gang violence being mainly responsible for a 72% increase in murders so far in 2015. In September, 4,942 people were murdered, and more than 500 were children. The violence skyrocketed after a 2011 gang truce ended in 2014. El Salvador is home to at least 60,000 gang members out of a population of 6.1 million. Many of the gangs were founded in the United States by Salvadorans who had fled their country’s civil war in the 1980s. teleSUR
