Honduran convicts donate beds to elderly home, in seeming peace gesture

Jailed members of the Mara Salvatrucha, one of the main killing and extortion gangs in Honduras, donated 50 wooden beds they had made to an old people's home in the northern city of San Pedro Sula where they were jailed, the daily El Heraldo reported on 18 June. The Auxiliary Bishop of San Pedro Sula interpreted the donation as a sign of the gangsters' goodwill and desire to change lives, following earlier public declarations that they would abandon crime. Monsignor Rómulo Emiliani, who was acting as mediator in an incipient ceasefire between this and the rival Barrio 18 gang, accompanied the inmates as they delivered the beds to the home where they themselves were said to have elderly relatives. The newspaper cited an unnamed member of the 18 gang as thanking God "as He is always first in these situations," then the bishop for his "support and faith," and stating the gang's desire to show Hondurans "we want real changes in Honduras," one of the continent's most violent states. He said his gang would, at some point, take part in all "social causes" where given an opportunity. The cleric was separately cited as saying that while President Porfirio Lobo had phoned to express support for the planned ceasefire, the state had done nothing specific yet to forward a peace plan. Nor had criminal violence stopped in Honduras in spite of contrary assertions, as recent incidents indicated. A member of the presidential guard was shot dead in Comayagüela north of the capital Tegucicalpa on 17 or 18 June, while driving home with his wife and child, La Prensa and EFE news agency reported. In San Pedro Sula, a 26-year-old bus driver's assistant was shot dead by a thief, after the assistant refused to let him flee from the bus, La Prensa reported on 18 June. Three prisoners and a woman were also shot dead in the capital on 15 June, apparently while the inmates were on leave; they were said to have been shot by a five-member execution squad firing assault weapons, La Prensa reported on 16 June.

Salvadoran mediators to advise Honduras on gangs ceasefire

To help realise the pledge made last May by the two main street gangs in Honduras to abandon crime, mediators of a gangs ceasefire in El Salvador and representatives of the Organisation of American States (OAS) met and talked on 17 June with gang members and Honduran mediators, in what seemed to be a first concrete step to ensure the ceasefire took off in Honduras, the Associated Press reported. An OAS official Ana Martínez told the agency that a meeting held in a prison in the city of San Pedro Sula in northern Honduras was to establish a code of practice and make personal contacts, and took place with the knowledge of Honduran officials. The Auxiliary Bishop of San Pedro Sula, Rómulo Emiliani, who is to act as mediator in what was hoped would become a disarmament and pacification process involving Honduran gangs, was cited as saying that Salvadorean mediators had come to "specifically" back "this effort, transmit to us their experiences and offer their support, always bearing in mind that the context of violence in Honduras" differed from El Salvador's. A spokesman for the Barrio 18 gang who attended the meeting was cited as claiming that homicides had dropped 80 per cent in Honduras since the gangs announced a ceasefire in late May; he added however that "the situation" was "complicated" as police "continue to murder us. They do not arrest us they execute us," AP reported. The agency observed it was impossible to verify whether or not homicides had declined in Honduras in recent weeks.

Gang killings continue in Honduras in spite of pledge to stop

Although the gangs of Honduras pledged last May to end their violent acts, raising hopes that crime could drop in Honduras as it has in neighbouring El Salvador, recent killings attributed to street gangs indicated they had yet to act on their stated intentions. One recent victim of gang criminality was a 31-year-old man shot on 9 June outside the northern city of San Pedro Sula, after he refused to hand over his house to a gang. Relatives of Cristhian Fajardo Sánchez fled the family home after one of the gangs told them they needed the property, but neighbours were cited as saying that he refused to leave - living there in a state of fear and locking himself in every evening after returning from work in a bottling plant, the Honduran daily La Prensa reported on 10 June. Three gunmen reportedly shot him as he walked to work one morning; witnesses said they were waiting for him at a street corner and shot him as he sought to walk past and ignore them. It was not immediately which of the gangs killed him, as he was reported shot on the frontier of the territories of the Mara Salvatrucha and M-18 gangs. In other incidents: the head of the state electricity firm ENEE for the northern city of Progreso was shot there on 11 June as he sought to enter a taxi, and a 63-old-woman was gunned down in Tegucicalpa on 9 June, apparently while cleaning the Protestant church she attended. The killing was attributed to an execution squad of 12 Maras, and police suspected this may have been for the victim's earlier efforts as head of a residents' association to reopen an abandoned police post in her neighbourhood, La Prensa reported. The daily also reported the shooting deaths of a Guatemalan couple while driving in Choloma in the northern department of Cortés, and of two taxi drivers in San Pedro Sula and Tegucicalpa on 9 June.

Honduran gangs offer to stop violence, lead ordinary lives

Leaders of the two main criminal gangs in Honduras - Mara Salvatrucha or MS13 and the Barrio 18 or M18 - publicly apologised on 28 May for any harm their groups had done to Honduran society and asked the state to help them move on from a life of crime, in a step echoing the gangs' ceasefire in El Salvador that has reduced violent crime there since March 2012. Honduras is currently one of the most violent countries in the world and authorities recently admitted its police and judiciary could barely cope with criminality. Gang spokesmen stated their resolve on 28 May to end this violence, at a press conference organised in prison in the northern city of San Pedro Sula, attended also by the two chief mediators, the Auxiliary Bishop of San Pedro Sula, Rómulo Emiliani, and the Secretary of Multidimentional Security at the Organization of American States (OAS) Adam Blackwell. According to the Honduran website Proceso Digital the ceasefire consisted for now in a total end to criminal violence across the country but not to extortions, which remained as elsewhere in Central America the chief source of money for such gangs. The Maras also pledged they would suspend recruitments, La Prensa reported. Reasons given by spokesmen for the apparent contrition or change of heart included the state's retaliatory violence against gang members and their relatives, the Maras' social ostracism and deplorable reputation and a desire to offer their children a better life. Honduran President Porfirio Lobo was cited as saying the state would give all necessary support to the ceasefire and the "efforts" being made by mediators. He said he spoke by telephone on 27 May to the Auxiliary Bishop who warned him the ceasefire would not be easy to maintain; but Mr Lobo stated his belief that the ceasefire was "for the best," even if the state did not envisage abandoning its capacity to fight crime with force, Europa Press reported on 29 May, citing the President's comments to the press in Tegucicalpa.

El Salvador prosecutor denounces gangs' "false" truce

El Salvador's chief prosecutor (Fiscal-general) Luis Martínez qualified as "false" and non-existent on 8 May the year-long truce agreed on by the Mara street gangs, accusing them of pursuing their violent activities and apparently contradicting officials' assertions that the truce had reduced crime. Martínez told the press in San Salvador that the truce "has never existed" as the victims cited in the press were members of the public, not "these lazy gangsters who only steal, extort and murder," Agence France-Presse reported. The agency observed that the comments followed authorities' recognition that violent crime had recently risen in El Salvador: Police registered "more than" 45 homicides "in the first few days" of May, El Salvador's Dario Co Latino reported on 9 May, and authorities suspected gangs were involved in some or most of these including the recent killing of a family of four in Zacatecoluca, south-east of San Salvador. "Criminal, violent, merciless...actions are the cause of social violence" and cause "pain, grief and bankruptcy" to Salvadorean families, he said. The Justice and Security Minister David Munguía however was reported as telling an interview or programme on 7 or 8 May that violent crime had several causes including "social violence." The Security Ministry stated on its website on 9 May that the rise in homicides in early May did not constitute a trend. The Minister attended on 8 or 9 May the inclusion of a ninth district in El Salvador - Nueva Concepción - among districts declared free of violent crime as part of the gang truce; the government was to spend 33 million USD in these districts to re-integrate gang members into civilian life, El Salvador's Diario Co Latino reported. On 9 May the Justice and Security Ministry stated on its website that April was the least violent month since the Maras' truce began in March 2012, with police counting 144 homicides compared to 156 in April 2012. It added that in the first four months of 2013 there were 695 homicides, compared to 1,225 counted for the same period in 2012.

Extortion rife in Honduras as government "fails" on security

The Honduran daily La Prensa reported on 7 May on the apparent ease with which street gangs extort money from thousands of businesses and individuals in Honduras - even the Church - raking in the equivalent of over 62 million USD or over 47 million euros a year to finance their organizations. It observed in a separate report on 6 May that certain observers estimated extortion could be earning the gangs twice that amount annually, though this was difficult to measure as most acts of extortion went unreported. Those forced to pay include bus drivers, taxi drivers, shopkeepers, owners of stalls and kiosks and businessmen from whom money was demanded in person or by phone; money was paid in forms including cash, bank transfers and re-charged mobile phones. In Tegucicalpa, members of the Mara gangs were said to collect money in the capital's 16 covered food and grocery markets, and in bus and taxi stops and small shopping centres. In the northern city of San Pedro Sula - one of the most violent cities in the Americas - likewise "all taxi and bus stops" pay, the daily observed. The country formed a National Anti-Extortion Force (Fuerza Nacional Antiextorsión) in March 2013, but the daily observed many individuals did not report extortion, fearing reprisals from gangsters who might or might not be caught and punished. La Prensa cited a driver from San Pedro Sula as saying that "members of the Maras and gangsters have killed hundreds of bus drivers, assistants and taxi drivers since 2009. We do not report because you do not know if the person you are reporting to is part of the extortion or a hired killer." A study cited claimed that some 17,500 small businesses closed in 2012 under the pressure of extortion, La Prensa reported on 6 May. Separately a coalition of Honduran rights bodies concluded on 7 May that the government of President Porfirio Lobo Sosa had failed to assure public security since taking power in 2010, in spite of its pledges, actions and claims. The Human Rights Alliance (Alianza por los Derechos Humanos) including several rights bodies held a press conference that day and issued a communiqué to denounce this failure, but also the alleged complicity of certain officials, which assured the impunity of criminals, EFE reported.

Coroners see murders halved in a year in El Salvador

State coroners counted 545 homicides in El Salvador in the first three months of 2013, 49.9 per cent fewer than the 1,078 registered for the same period in 2012. This was another figure corroborating government officials' assertions that the truce and disarmament process the state has begun with street gangs has considerably reduced crime. The figure given by the Institute of Legal Medicine (IML) was lower than those of the police, its head José Miguel Fortín Magaña said, adding that this was likely for uncertainties in identifying certain body remains, El Salvador's El Mundo reported on 5 April. An IML report indicated that the San Salvador department had the most murders in the first quarter of 2013 with 151, followed by La Paz on the Pacific coast with 49, while firearms caused 343 or 62.9 per cent of the deaths. Almost 70 per cent of victims were in the 15-39 age group, coroners found. The coroners' report indicated that the most violent month in the two periods was January 2012 with 413 killings, followed by February 2012 with 402; the gangs' ceasefire began in March 2012, giving a figure of 263 killings for that months. On 5 April one of the mediators in the truce, the army Bishop Fabio Colindres urged the gangs to stop their extortion activities and maintain their pledge to abandon crime. He was speaking at an event to include the district of San Vicente north of the capital among several municipalities declared as free of violent crime. A day before a spokesman for one of the main gangs MS (Mara Salvatrucha) said "conditions need be generated" to allow the gangs to consider ending extortion, which is a financing mechanism, El Mundo reported. The Security and Justice Ministry reportedly observed a 17 per cent fall over 2012-13 in extortions, described as modest compared to killings. There were 216 complaints to police about extortion in the first quarter of 2013, compared to 262 in the same period in 2012, the daily cited the Ministry as stating. This apparently excluded extortions that went unreported.

Suspected gang chief caught in Guatemala

Guatemalan police and state prosecutors detained on 3 April a suspect identified as the chief in Guatemala of the Mara Salvatrucha - the local branch of one of Central America's main criminal gangs - following a joint operation in Iztapa on the Pacific Coast, Europa Press reported citing Guatemalan media. Marco Antonio Sian Chávez - el Bufón - was one of three suspected gang chiefs detained in 30 operations against gangs around the country that day. Police also caught a suspected gunman of the Maras with Sian Chávez - a 21-year-old dubbed el Enano. The gang leader was sought for his suspected role in at least four killings, of a rival and three alleged police informants, Prensa Libre reported on 4 April. The state attributes most extortions in the country to the two main gangs, M-18 and Mara Salvatrucha.

El Salvador launches an anti-gangs court

El Salvador's state prosecution service (Fiscalía) headed by Luis Martínez has merged its homicides unit into a new specialised court that would investigate murders and gang activity, with fewer state prosecutors focusing on the mechanics and organization of gangs seen as the culprits in most murders in El Salvador. The Specialised Homicide Crimes and Anti-gang Unit (Unidad Espcializada de Delitos de Homicidio y Antipandillas) was to begin working on 20 February, using 19 instead of the 25 prosecutors who worked before in the Homicides Unit; that court's former head Óscar Torres was provisionally to head the new unit, El Salvador's El Mundo reported. Torres has been a state prosecutor since 1999 and worked in different areas of the state prosecution service. El Mundo suggested these changes may be in response to the fact that murder investigations in El Salvador generally lead to the Mara street gangs, which police figures indicate to be responsible for 85 per cent of homicides and up to 90 per cent of extortions. It added that many shooting deaths reported in the papers appear to be carefully planned assassinations. The daily cited the prisons authority as estimating at 60,000 the number of gang members in El Salvador, of whom 10,000 were jailed. The Minister of Justice David Munguía Payés separately admitted on 20 February that homicides slightly increased on average in February compared to January, and attributed this to recent vendettas among gangs. Speaking in Sopayango outside the capital, he said he hoped the figure would fall again, adding that the latest rate of 6.7 homicides a day remained 70 per cent lower than in the same period in 2012 before the ceasefire of gangs began in March 2012, El Mundo reported. He said the same day that the state would seek to increase to 60 the 18 districts initially designated sanctuaries from violent crime in cooperation with local gangs, though he said money was needed to do this, La Prensa Gráfica reported.

El Salvador gangs to hand in 300 firearms

Gang members in El Salvador were to hand in 300 firearms as part of an ongoing pacification process in the country, and within a new law to regulate the voluntary handover of firearms, El Salvador's El Mundo reported, citing declarations by the Minister of Justice. The Minister David Munguía Payés said 300 firearms were to be handed in within 10 days at an unspecified place and another undated handover was being negotiated, all within the Special Transitory Law for the Voluntary Handover of Firearms, Explosives, Munitions and Similar Articles, which parliament ratified on 14 February (Ley Especial Transitoria para la Entrega Voluntaria de Armas de Fuego, Explosivos, Municiones y Artículos Similares). "The idea is to take out of circulation weapons in the hands of people who can potentially commit crimes," the minister said at an unspecied location. The country's deputy-police chief Mauricio Ramírez Landaverde stated in turn - apparently speaking with the minister - that 380 arms or "artefacts" had been decomissioned in 2013. He specified that people handing in firearms would not be prosecuted for carrying or possession of arms but that crimes committed with such weapons would be investigated. The initiative was another part of an ongoing "pacification" process in the country that includes a ceasefire between Mara gangs in force since 2012 and designation of several crime-free districts, which officials insist has reduced violent crime. Police deputy-chief Ramírez said on 15 February that police counted 290 homicides in the country in January and 15 days of February 2013, when the figure was 587 for the same period in 2012, El Mundo reported. Munguía told Radio El Salvador on 13 February that this was "the most successful process to reduce violence throughout the western hemisphere" and had made El Salvador a model of interest to other states, the Ministry of Justice reported. Crime persisted however including in designated safe areas. On 13 February police detained five presumed members of the Mara-18 gang and freed a boy they had apparently kidnapped on 11 February on the edge of the "safe" district of Quetzaltepeque, north of the capital, elsalvador.com reported. The boy had been kept in the nearby district of Nejapa; police suspected the crime was ordered from a prison where M-18 inmates are kept.

Salvadorean police count two murders in "crime-free" district

A man's bruised body was found on 11 February in the district of Ilopango outside San Salvador, suggesting a second killing in recent days in one of the districts gangs had pledged would be free of violence, La Prensa Gráfica reported on 12 February. The body indicated the victim had been strangled and possibly stabbed to death and initial police investigations suggested gang involvement; gangs reportedly told police they had nothing to do with the first killing in this district, of an 18-year-old boy on 3 February. Ilopango was among the safe zones listed in the second phase of a national plan to disarm and pacify the Mara gangs. The mayor of Ilopango who has coordinated the ceasefire between gangs locally and the Justice Minister did not immediately attribute the crime to anyone. The minister David Munguía Payés reportedly declared however that police counted 76 homicides in El Salvador in 2013 to 10 February, 263 fewer than for the same period in 2012. La Prensa Gráfica separately reported the arrests on 10 or 11 February of six presumed gang members as they raped a 16-year-old girl, in the district of Apopa north of San Salvador. Three of the detained were described as "minors," presumably children or teenagers.

El Salvador officials say murders continue to fall

Officials declared on 6 February that El Salvador's homicide figures were in January 2013 less than half those of January 2012, even as they admitted that a ceasefire between gangs that helped reduce murders had yet to end violent crime in El Salvador. The Security and Justice Minister David Mungía Payés told a San Salvador press conference that authorities counted 190 homicides in January 2013, 54 per cent less than the 413 for January 2012. He attributed this as on previous occasions to police action and the ceasefire between the Mara street gangs. Extortions reported in January dropped 18 per cent year-on-year, he said. Munguía admitted there had been a slight rise in violent acts recently in spite of the ceasefire and that "purges" were going in the gangs including in districts selected as crime-free zones; "we have entered a process that has helped us reduce violence, but this has not finished. The ceasefire is not a perfect process," he said. He attributed the killings of four on 1 February in the city of San Miguel east of San Salvador to gang rivalries. The latest victims of crime in El Salvador were two cousins aged 15 and 16 years, earlier reported as kidnapped and found dead on 5 or 6 February in Apopa, a district north of San Salvador, elsalvador.com reported. Most or all readers' comments left on various websites reporting such crimes indicated that the public was entirely skeptical, and often contemptuous, of official declarations on improving crime figures.

Over 40 gangsters held in El Salvador over murders

State prosecutors in El Salvador announced on 23 January the arrests of 33 members of the M-18 gang for their suspected roles in beheading three youngsters in the eastern Izalco district last October, while eight other members of M-18 were arrested for their suspected roles in killing five rivals in the southern port of La Libertad in September. The head of the homicides office at the state prosecution service (Unidad Especial Antihomicidios Fiscalía General de la República) Óscar Torres said that the arrests had netted half or more of the members of the M-18's "Southern" line or faction, thought responsible for multiple crimes in Izalco in the Sonsonate department north-east of San Salvador. The 33 were suspected of taking part in the kidnapping, interrogation and murder with machetes of three youngsters aged between 17 and 21, on an estate on 11 October, the website elsalvador.com reported on 24 January. The daily El Mundo noted that the victims were suspected of being members of a rival gang, though state investigators later dismissed this. Eight other members of M-18's Southern line were also arrested for the murder on 18 September of five rivals in the Pacific port of La Libertad; officials have reportedly arrested more than 20 in relation with that incident. The victims, purported members of a rival faction in M-18, were aged between 13 and 18 and included a 16-year-old girl. The gang chief who ordered the killing first phoned to ask permission from his boss, currently serving a sentence in a prison west of the capital, elsalvador.com reported on 24 Januuary. He called from the home of a policeman who was also a member of the M-18 and was arrested in early October. Gang violence has reportedly declined in El Salvador since a ceasefire began in March 2012; instructions given out by imprisoned gang chiefs that violence stop among members may have been the reason for seeking approval before this killing.

El Salvador gangs to avoid violence in four districts

Mediators announced the start on 18 January of the second phase of a ceasefire between El Salvador's main criminal gangs, naming four districts as "sanctuary municipalities" that were to be gradually rid of violent crime in following days, Europa Press reported. The ceasefire began in March 2012 and officials believe it has significantly reduced violent crime in El Salvador. The municipalities were named by the army bishop and the former leftist guerrilla Raul Mijango who have been acting as mediators between the state and several gangs. In a communiqué issued on 19 January five gangs promised to respect the four sanctuaries and qualified this as part of a process "whose objective is to fully abandon all criminal activity." They also stated that they would continue to "disarm" and hand over weapons to "facilitators" of the Organization of American States, which is assisting the pacification process in El Salvador, Europa Press reported. They asked the government to design a legal framework for this disarmament. The statement was signed by the gangs MSX3, Barrio 19, Mao-Mao, Máquina and Mirada Locos, while the four districts due to become sanctuaries from violence were named as Santa Tecla, Sonsonate, Llopango and Quezaltepeque, the latter a reputed crime hot-spot, Europa Press reported. El Salvador's La Prensa Gráfica reported on 20 January that the gangs were prepared to extend the ceasefire to 18 other districts, adding however that they had made no commitment to discontinue extortion.

Salvadorean president sees "unprecedented" crime fall

President Mauricio Funes Cartagena said in San Salvador on 5 December that his country was living an "unprecedented process" of decline in criminality even as crime rates were rising elsewhere in Latin America, and this partly for the truce that began last March between the main gangs, the Salvadorean daily El Mundo reported. He said at a graduation ceremony for 65 army and airforce officers that El Salvador "faces a unique opportunity to advance on the path to becoming a country with real democracy and peace." This "pacification process" he added was not just for the gang truce arranged by mediators, but also for the efforts of the army and police. The country's Justice and Public Security Minister David Munguía Payés spoke last October of a steady decline in crime in 2012, asserting that it fell more sharply after the start of the gang truce on 8 March and unspecified police operations, El Mundo reported at the time. Munguía cited a 38.4 per cent fall in crime in 2012 compared to 2011 - without specifying dates for the January-October period - and a comparative fall in crimes of 68 per cent for the period after 8 March. Separately El Salvador and Russia signed a security agreement in Moscow on 6 December focused on fighting drug trafficking, El Mundo reported. The agreement was signed by Munguía and the head of the Russian Federal Drug Control Service Viktor Ivanov. Its provisions included exchange of information, "technological investigation" and training programmes.

El Salvador's gangs to "disarm" in 10 districts

El Salvador's main criminal gangs agreed on 4 December to a proposal to turn 10 districts into "peace sanctuaries" - apparently without arms or gang violence - in what was described as the second phase of a pioneer decriminalisation process that began in March 2012, the Salvadorean daily El Mundo reported. This phase was announced on 23 November by mediators and the Security Ministry, which were to determine the districts, so far unnamed, the website La página reported. The gangs were to hand over their arms there at an unspecified date to the chief mediators in the process, the former leftist militant Raúl Mijango and the army bishop, Monsignor Fabio Colindres Abarca. A spokesman for the gangs read out a communiqué to this effect at a meeting in a prison in San Salvador attended by the facilitators, gang leaders and an envoy of the Organisation of American States (OAS) Carlos Orozco; the OAS has pledged to aid the process. The gangs concerned were MS-13 or Mara Salvatrucha, M-18, La Mao-Mao, La Máquina and La Mirada Locos. The spokesman, a leader of M-18 dubbed El Viejo Lin, said the disarmament would benefit some 900,000 people and the proposal was a "realistic and objective" step in the process to solve "the problem of violence" in El Salvador. Other gang leaders speaking at the meeting urged a repeal of anti-gang laws, which one said were too many and an impediment "to the continuation of the process." Nevertheless they thanked President Mauricio Funes and the Papal Nuncio, Monsignor Luigi Pezzuto, for their collaboration so far.

Murders spoil "farse" ceasefire of Salvadorean gangs

The discovery outside San Salvador of the bodies of five students likely murdered by gangsters last June has belied the ceasefire declared last March by El Salvador's two main gangs the Maras, though many insist it reduced murders in 2012, the Associated Press reported on 9 September. The students were reported missing on 21 June and found dead in July in Santa Tecla, a district west of the capital; authorities attributed the massacre to the Mara Salvatrucha and believe the teenagers were murdered for refusing to join them. Officials and observers were now divided over whether or not the ceasefire had effectively reduced crime in El Salvador. AP cited the justice ministry as declaring that murders dropped 34 per cent in January-August 2012 compared to the same period in 2011, from 2,874 to 1,894. The state coroner (Instituto de Medicina Legal) reportedly registered a 31-per-cent drop in murders in this period - from 2,839 to 1,949. But the figures were apparently not flawless: The ministry declared its figures to be based on "cases investigated" while the coroner used reported disappearances. The latter cautioned however that it was not authorised to investigate such reports while Justice Minister David Munguía Payés observed to AP that people often failed to retract complaints when disappeared individuals returned. Certain experts expressed skepticism: Carlos Ponce, a criminologist working with the prosecutor-general's office, told AP he thought the gangs were continuing their activities and "continuing to kill" - perhaps with greater discretion - and said he suspected "manipulation" of Munguía's figures. Another observer, Max Manwaring of the US War University in Pennsylvania, qualified the ceasefire as a "farse" and said it was difficult to count murders when officials could not investigate crimes in parts of El Salvador controlled by the gangs. The former guerrilla fighter and current ceasefire mediator Rául Mijango attributed the killings to unidentified vigilantes who he said were trying to ruin the ceasefire between the Maras by killing Maras. AP's field inquiries and conversations with members of the public suggested that the intimidating authority of the Maras over localities had not diminished. The agency gave the first names of the students believed murdered by the Maras last June, as authorised by police: 15-year-old Kevin Alexis, 16-year-old Jonathan Alexander, 16-year-old José Roberto, and Fernando Alexander and Jonathan B. both aged 18.