Voters in El Salvador go to the polls March 15 to elect a new president, and one of the biggest issues in the heated campaign is crime.
The tiny country has one of the highest murder rates in the Americas. Street gangs dominate sections of the capital, and extortion rackets are rampant.
Fear Paralyzes Hospital
On the outskirts of San Salvador, the Villa Mariona Health Clinic is a bland, single-story government building centered around a small courtyard. Patients line the walls under the awnings. Mothers scurry in with sick children in their arms. Staff in medical scrubs rush between the rooms.
But late last year, all activity here came to a halt. The clinic shut after gangs threatened to kill the employees.
Dr. Jose Ernesto Flores, the facility’s new director, says the staff received anonymous calls demanding money and threatening to kill them if they didn’t pay.
He says gangs had been demanding extortion payments, or la renta, of $20 a month from the clinic’s 36 employees for some time. Rather than continue to pay or report the problem to the police, the staff fled.
The clinic is the only medical facility for a community of almost 40,000 people. It shut entirely in September. Eventually, Flores and a few new employees were brought in to reopen the clinic.
