Latin America

Death squads in El Salvador (Spanish: escuadrones de la muerte) were far-right paramilitary groups acting in opposition to Marxist–Leninist guerrilla forces, most notably of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), and their allies among the civilian population before, during, and after the Salvadoran Civil War. The death squads committed the vast majority of the murders and massacres during the civil war from 1979 to 1992 and were heavily aligned with the United States-backed government.[1][2][3]

According to the Attorney for the Defense of Human Rights (PDDH), death squads remain active in El Salvador. The PDDH registered 25 extrajudicial executions of gang members between May 2022 and May 2023 which it attributed to death squad activity during the country's gang crackdown.[4]

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Post-civil war
During negotiations to end the civil war in what are now the Chapultepec Peace Accords, part of the agreements were that the government of El Salvador would crack down on and suppress the paramilitaries that fought alongside them during the civil war. The accords stated that the government would "[s]uppress paramilitary entities (Civil Defense Patrols)."[19]

Most of the paramilitaries that existed in the country before and during the civil war have since ceased to exist but one notable exception, Sombra Negra, continues to operate in the country, targeting gang members of MS-13 and 18th Street Gang as a form of vigilante justice.[20]

Human rights violations
During the civil war, the paramilitaries, often labeled as death squads, came to public attention when on March 24, 1980, Archbishop of San Salvador Óscar Romero was assassinated while giving Mass.[21] The Salvadoran government investigated but was unable to identify who assassinated Romero. The investigation did identify Major Roberto D'Aubuisson, a neo-fascist who commanded several death squads during the civil war,[22][23] as having ordered the assassination.[24][25]

The US-trained Atlácatl Battal
ion of the Salvadoran Army was responsible for committing two of the largest massacres during the civil war: the El Mozote massacre and the El Calabozo massacre.[26] Sombra Negra tortured victims, mostly gang members, and killed them with a point-blank shot to the head.[27][28]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_squads_in_El_Salvador#Bibliography




La Sombra Negra, El Salvador