By Hugo Sanchez |
Jiquilisco (El Salvador) (EFE)
At night, 11 months ago, hooded police officers entered the grounds of her house, without a warrant and only with an alleged anonymous complaint, to arrest her mother. Since then he hasn’t seen her, he hasn’t hugged her.
El Salvador was close to completing, at that time, a month under an emergency regime, approved by Congress at the request of President Nayib Bukele after an escalation of murders that claimed the lives of more than 80 people in three days, and which It is now one year since its implementation.
EFE visited the remote area of Bajo Lempa, in the eastern part of the country, to learn about the case of three detained women whose innocence their relatives defend even in international instances.
Claudia: the teacher for children from five communities
Claudia Hernández, 27, was arrested on April 24, 2022, around 11:00 p.m. Oswaldo Ortiz, her partner, remembers that they went to sleep at 9:30 at night and that an hour and a half later the barking of her dog woke them up.
“I got up, opened the door of the house and when I opened it, the police were there”, inside his property and without a search warrant, Oswaldo recounts.
“There is an anonymous complaint against her,” one of the captors told her, who confirmed that she was part of the arrests generated by the emergency regime.
Oswaldo points out that the police officers did not check his house or Claudia’s phone, nor did they check her identity document to “see if she really was or was not” the person they were looking for.
What follows is the transfer of Claudia to a cell of the National Civil Police, then to a women’s prison in central El Salvador and finally to another prison more than 170 kilometers away.
Claudia’s partner points out that in the official record of the arrest, the police say that she was captured in another place, 8 kilometers away from her home, along with 16 people.
“Claudia worked in a child welfare center and cared for children from five communities,” who attended with free transportation provided by international cooperation, says Oswaldo, and regrets that the Prosecutor’s Office, despite judicial authorization, has not taken the statements of Witnesses for your partner.
“The hardest thing is when the kids ask why mommy doesn’t come,” she says.
Acceptance and complaints against the exception regime
The emergency regime, baptized by the Government as “war against gangs”, is accepted by the majority of the population, according to surveys, and thousands of complaints of outrages are registered.
“At this moment, our fight is to show the judge that the Police are lying,” Oswaldo stresses and maintains that there is a fear among the families of those detained to denounce them publicly.
In Bajo Lempa, a settlement made up of about twenty communities of survivors of the civil war (1980-1992), the Committee of Relatives Victims of the Regime has been formed, which shouts “Alive they were taken away, alive we want them!” !” They announced on March 10 that they denounced the Salvadoran State before the IACHR for the “systematic violation” of their rights.
The cases related to arbitrary detention represent 98.5%, while 30.9% have also denounced illegal trespassing and 9.1% mistreatment.
Sarai and Dilma
Sarai Santos (47) was also captured at her home, two and a half hours before Claudia and several kilometers away. The policemen and soldiers knocked on the door, made an inspection and left. Five minutes later, the soldiers jumped over a wall and ordered it to open again.
“We are going to take her into custody,” one of the police officers told Sandra Núñez (30), Saraí’s daughter. At the police station they were informed: “Here they have been detained by gang collaborators (…) and they are leaving me if they do not want you to be detained as well.”
Sandra affirms that her mother worked at that time as an accountant for the Intercommunal Association of United Communities for the Economic and Social Development of Bajo Lempa (Acudesbal), in addition to practicing her profession in two other places.
“She has been a dedicated and collaborative woman who in her community and here anyone can attest to that,” says the young woman, the eldest of three children.
Despite the fact that she was arrested at her home, according to Sandra, the Police assure that her mother was captured “at midnight” far from her home with a group of 16 other people, “which is a lie.”
Daniel González (36) recounts that his sister, Dilma González (31), was arrested on the street for questioning police officers for the capture of another young man on May 9, 2022.
“Just for asking why they were taking the boy friend of ours, the police got out and told her that they were going to arrest her for defending gang members,” says Daniel, who regrets that his relatives do not have the option of “defending themselves to nothing”.
Criticism of organizations to the exception regime
According to humanitarian organizations, the captures of the emergency regime have generated a “care crisis” among families, since care work is accumulating even more in women, since the majority of detainees are men.
Experts also point out that prison conditions for women present complications, since their sexual and reproductive health needs “are completely forgotten.”
At each concentration, the families of the detainees from Bajo Lempa promise that “united and united we will release each case. Reunited and united until giving them the hug ”.