Opinion | The High Price of Safety in El Salvador - The New York Times

While some in Apopa have been imprisoned unfairly, many are thrilled that their neighborhood is safe since the gang crackdown by President Nayib Bukele, at right in the photo being hung. Credit... Juan Carlos for The New York Times Supported by By Megan K. Stack Photographs by Juan Carlos Ms. Stack, a contributing Opinion writer, reported from Apopa, El Salvador. Nöe del Cid watched his neighborhood come back to life from the seat of his wheelchair. This tight row of cinderblock houses with barred windows and corrugated metal roofs formed, for much of Mr. del Cid’s life, a precarious border zone between enemy gangs. Bullet scars are still visible, chipped into the walls of houses and staining the flesh of residents like Mr. del Cid, who was partially paralyzed in 2003 by a gunshot to the neck. In the two years since President Nayib Bukele unleashed his brutal crackdown on El Salvador’s gangs, most of the gangsters who once lorded over the neighborhood have been imprisoned, fled or gon

While some in Apopa have been imprisoned unfairly, many are thrilled that their neighborhood is safe since the gang crackdown by President Nayib Bukele, at right in the photo being hung. Credit... Juan Carlos for The New York Times Supported by By Megan K. Stack Photographs by Juan Carlos Ms. Stack, a contributing Opinion writer, reported from Apopa, El Salvador. Nöe del Cid watched his neighborhood come back to life from the seat of his wheelchair. This tight row of cinderblock houses with barred windows and corrugated metal roofs formed, for much of Mr. del Cid’s life, a precarious border zo