Police counted 44 killings in El Salvador over Easter

El Salvador's National Civil Police (Policía Nacional Civil) counted 44 homicides around El Salvador between 23 and 31 March, which it stated was nine fewer than in the same period in 2012, La Prensa Gráfica reported on 2 April. The figures included deaths in drunken brawls and from gang activities. A deputy-head of the Police Mauricio Ramírez Landaverde reportedly attributed eight of the killings to drunken incidents, while the deputy-police chief for Public Security Howard Cotto said 26 were for "social violence...we have fully established that 12 of the 44 homicides, that is 27 per cent, were for fights between gangs." The police stated that the most violent departments for the period were San Salvador with 14 homicides, La Libertad, north west of San Salvador with six homicides, and Sonsonate on the Pacific coast with six. It was not immediately clear if the total figure included two women the daily reported as killed in the late hours of 31 March in the north-western district of Coatepeque. At least two other persons were reported killed around the country following the Easter period, including a man reported as kidnapped on 1 April, La Prensa Gráfica reported on 3 April. He was found shot dead on 2 April in Apopa north of the capital, one of the districts earlier declared as free of violent crime as part of an ongoing process to disarm the country's gangs. Officials maintain the truce has considerably reduced crime. On 2 April the country's Minister of Justice David Munguía Payés said on television that officials and personalities involved in the truce would soon tour Washington DC as guests of the Organization of American States, to inform politicians, think tanks and members of the Salvadorean community there about of the truce but also seek funding for the truce, which involves the social reintegration of criminals. The delegation would include Munguía, truce mediators and police officials, the Ministry website and La Prensa Gráfica reported on 3 April.