SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — U.S. Peace Corps volunteers returned to El Salvador on Friday for the first time since the U.S. military left in 2016 due to the violence in the Central American country.
It was the latest sign of a thaw in U.S. relations with El Salvador, whose President Nayib Bukele was once shunned for his crackdown on street gangs.
It was also a sign of the extent to which Bukele’s widespread arrests of suspected gang members – which also included the jailing of a significant number of apparently innocent young men – have reduced the country’s once-fearsome homicide rate.
The Peace Corps said the first nine volunteers would work on community economic development, education and youth initiatives. All nine had previously worked in other Central American countries for two years.
“Today is not just a celebration, it is a pledge to build on the decades-long partnership with the people of El Salvador,” said Peace Corps Director Carol Spahn.
Since 1962, more than 2,300 Peace Corps volunteers had worked in El Salvador. The Peace Corps volunteers left after El Salvador’s gang-fueled homicide rate peaked in 2015 at 106 homicides per 100,000 residents. That year there were 6,658 murders in the country of 6.3. million.
Under one state of emergency Originally declared in 2022 and still in effect, Bukele’s government has rounded up about 81,900 suspected gang members in actions that rights groups say are often arbitrary, based on a person’s appearance or where he or she lives. The government has had to release about 7,000 people due to lack of evidence.
In July, the rights group Cristosal said at least 261 people had been killed in prisons during the crackdown.
Although the government has been accused of committing massive human rights abuses during the crackdown, Bukele remains highly popular in El Salvador as homicides have fallen sharply following the arrests. The Central American country has gone from one of the most dangerous countries in the world to one with the lowest murder rate in the region.
In all of 2023, there were only 214 homicides in the country, and 116 so far in 2024.
Bukele carried that popularity into his re-election in February, despite the country’s constitution banning second terms for presidents. The United States did not object and sent a high-level delegation to his inauguration for a second term.