Reports of disappearances continue to be heard despite the drastic drop in crime since Nayib Bukele came to power.
Outside the borders of El Salvador, the work of search parents is little known.
They periodically walk the streets and sidewalks of the Central American country looking for clues and posting posters with the names of their missing people on every tree, post and wall possible, only to see them soon torn down by unknown persons.
They post their pleas on social media, but almost always they only receive insults. Despite this, they persist. They know that their struggle is an uphill battle. Thus, they add their voices to the thousands of others that have already been heard - without response - since the Salvadoran civil war.
The crime of forced disappearance in El Salvador does not end with the signing of the Peace Accords that ended the armed conflict.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reports that between 2005 and 2019, there were some 18,000 cases of missing persons.
Today, "disappearance can still affect any home in El Salvador, regardless of the background of the victims," Andrés Guzmán, the presidential commissioner for human rights and freedom of expression, told DW.
"In the past, gang-generated violence eliminated any notion of security based on demographic characteristics, making it possible for anyone - regardless of age, gender or socioeconomic status - to become a victim. Although the situation has improved, the threat of disappearance remains a reality that affects various sectors of the population," says Guzmán, but clarifies that migration could be one of the causes behind the number of missing people: "Many people leave the country in search of better opportunities, often without informing their families, which leads to them being reported missing."
Based on its research, the Foundation for Studies on the Application of Law (FESPAD) "has determined that the most frequent victims of disappearances are adolescents and young men, between 15 and 30 years old," explains Dina Martínez, director of Access to Justice for the organization.
She adds that "although women report a lower incidence, the available records of complaints since 2010 indicate that missing girls and women represent between 30 and 40 percent."
Marielos Pérez, from the organization Alerta Raquel, explains that, according to data from her organization, girls, young women and women "disappear in different contexts than men."
Statistical data, especially official data, are important to understand the problem. They could provide evidence of the effectiveness of the public policies implemented and, in addition, identify the areas that need greater attention from society.
In El Salvador, this is a challenge as there are no updated figures available, leading to contradictory conclusions between the Government and local and international human rights organisations.
"The State has promoted a de facto policy of opacity and, since 2021, information on missing persons, clandestine graves, among others, is completely confidential, in such a way that it makes it difficult to document possible patterns in the cases and does not allow for an analysis of the types and modalities of disappearance that affect the victims. In general terms, the State has maintained a discourse of denial of the phenomenon and has criminalized the victims," says Victoria Barrientos, Program Officer of the Due Process Foundation (DPLF).
According to the official view and the presidential commissioner, "the state of exception has been a crucial tool in the fight against forced disappearance and other serious crimes in El Salvador. These measures have made it possible to dismantle numerous criminal networks that previously used disappearance as a method of control and repression."
Guzmán maintains that the official databases of the National Civil Police (PNC) record - between 2015 and 2020 - 7,291 missing persons.
"These figures show a significant decrease since 2018, reflecting the efforts made to combat this problem. It is important to note that, according to the Attorney General's Office (FGR), no complaints of forced disappearances have been received in the last three years, which underlines significant progress in the protection of human rights in El Salvador," says Guzmán.
Dina Martínez, from FESPAD, rejects this information, stressing that "for all records on public security - especially on criminal and delinquent acts, including the disappearance of persons - there is a reserve of information. Based on the cases that are reported on social networks or to NGOs that support the families of missing persons, it can be presumed that there is an under-reporting."
Thus, while the official side claims, for example, that the PNC reports that in 2019 there were 732 cases, and that in 2020 there were 540 missing persons, a FESPAD report - published in 2023 - indicates that, according to its records, in 2019 there were 2,875 people reported missing and in 2020 there were 1,535.
Faced with this reality, nine civil organizations that make up the Working Group for Missing Persons in El Salvador (GTPD) launched the so-called Citizen Registry of Missing Persons, because "the state response to address the phenomenon of disappearances - by individuals, such as gangs and organized crime, and forced disappearances, such as by state agents in the state of emergency - in El Salvador has been ineffective," explains Victoria Barrientos.
"In El Salvador - despite the adoption, in 2018, of the Urgent Action Protocol and Search Strategy for Missing Persons - a Registry of Missing Persons or a Genetic Bank of Victims that could help clarify many cases was not created. That is why this new citizen registry is being created, in order to have an approximate number of missing persons, which is not the official one, since we could not guarantee that all victims of disappearance will use this registry," explains Barrientos.
For his part, the presidential commissioner calls on "the entire population to use the official portal" of the Police "to report any disappearance" and thus "immediately activate the search protocols, ensuring that each case receives the attention it deserves." He adds that, for cases of children and adolescents, the Prosecutor's Office "has also set up the Missing Angel Alert system."
According to data from the Statista platform, after having reached its highest peak in 2015, the homicide rate in El Salvador has been decreasing dramatically in the following years. In 2023, it stood at around 2.4 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, which not only reflects a decrease of more than 93% since Nayib Bukele assumed the presidency of the Central American country, but also constitutes the lowest homicide rate in the entire American territory.
