The challenge of tracking displaced populations in El Salvador
鈥⒙�聽researches, analyzes, and investigates organized crime in the Americas. Find all of聽Elyssa Pachico鈥檚 work聽.
According to media reports in聽, dozens of families abandoned their homes in a small coastal town due to threats from the聽聽gang, an example of how organized crime remains one of the major causes of displacement in Central America.听
聽reported that at least 50 families left their homes in the town of San Luis La Herradura, fearful of threats reportedly issued by聽聽gang members. The newspaper聽聽showing people apparently gathering up their belongings, accompanied by a few shots of police patrolling the area.听, community members said that a gang had threatened to punish the town for providing shelter to two ex-gang members.听
聽provided to newspaper El Mundo, police said that only one family had left the area, as several members of that family belong to a gang and had received threats.听
InSight Crime Analysis
While there have been other聽听颈苍听, the issue remains difficult to track as there聽is no government agency in聽聽that follows the country's internally displaced population.听聽on the problem for InSight Crime in 2012, as part of a special series on displacement in the region, the government body that best registered the scale of聽's displacement was a low-income housing fund, which tracks how many people abandoned their homes over the years. Without any central government authority keeping track of the problem, it is hard to say how many Salvadorans have been affected by internal displacement, and whether the recent events in San Luis are an anomaly or not.听
贬辞飞别惫别谤,听聽made last year by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, threats by gangs and organized crime is the major cause of displacement in the Northern Triangle region (,听, and聽). The UN agency said that according to the most recent data, in 2012 some 1,620 Salvadorans asked to seek asylum in other countries, along with another 8,153 refugees.
El Salvador isn't the only country in the region that's in the dark regarding its rate of internal displacement.听聽is also having a hard time聽, along with.听
