6 Christians and 8 others killed in gang related violence as El Salvador church attacked
Six evangelical Christians were shot to death at the weekend in El Salvador by gang members, local officials have reported.
All of these victims were men, ages 16 to 54, targeted while leaving a church service in Ahuachapán State, a rural western region close to the Guatemala border.
According to Fox News Latino, investigators have been unable to determine what motivated the shootings, though gang wars frequently occur in this part of the country.
“Prosecutors from across the country reported 14 homicides” on Saturday, the AG’s office said in a Twitter post, adding eight others killed in a nearby attack.
Three “members of the Pandilla 18” street gang were murdered Saturday night in El Cobanal, a village in the central province of La Paz, the AG’s office said.
The gang members “died from gunshots to the head with a 12-gauge shotgun,” the AG’s office said.
El Salvador’s goverment has struggled to crack down on gangs that control large parts of the country and are seen as the primary driver behind its high murder rate.
In a recent five-year span, the U.S. and European governments have invested more than $500 million in violence reduction programs, but the investment has seen little change in the country’s violent crime statistics.
At least 2,492 people were murdered in El Salvador in 2013, or 102 fewer than in 2012, when 2,594 homicides were registered, the coroner’s office said.
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