The United Nations has underlined its “serious concerns” about the human rights situation in El Salvador, highlighting in particular arbitrary arrests and prison conditions.

“It has now been a year since the state of emergency has been in effect in El Salvador, a year during which the authorities have taken measures that raise serious human rights concerns,” said Marta Hurtado, spokeswoman for the High Commissioner for UN for Human Rights.

“We understand the serious problems caused by gang violence and the duty of the state to guarantee safety. However, it is also the duty of the state to do so while respecting international human rights law,” the spokeswoman continued during a press conference in Geneva.

Since a state of emergency was declared on March 27, 2022, following a spate of 87 murders in a few days, more than 65,000 alleged criminals have been arrested without warrant, adding to the 16,000 “mareros” already behind bars.

“Some of these mass arrests, including children, appear to have been made arbitrarily, based on unsubstantiated investigations, crude profiling (of suspects) based on the appearance or social background of the people taken into custody,” noted Ms. Urtado.

“We ask the Salvadoran authorities to ensure that people are not arrested without sufficient legal justification and that people in detention will have all the fundamental guarantees provided for by international human rights law,” he insisted.

After the tens of thousands of arrests, the government opened in early February a giant prison in the southeastern part of the country, on the outskirts of the city of Tekoluka, where 40,000 alleged members of the “maras”, the gangs, will be transferred.

Mrs. Hurtado emphasized that “the conditions in the detention facilities, where there is often overcrowding, are very worrying”, adding that the UN has received complaints about gross violations of the rights of those deprived of their freedom, in particular for prolonged confinement in isolation, for a complete lack of medicine care and other forms of ill-treatment.

He called it “particularly worrying that 90 people have been found to have died in custody after the state of emergency came into force”, adding that “we have very little information about the investigations into these deaths”.

The High Commissioner called for the national human rights authority to be granted access to all detention centres.