Since 2021, San Salvador has been removed from the notorious list of the 50 most violent cities in the world, a testament to the robust security plan implemented by President Nayib Bukele. The capital city’s absence from this alarming ranking is a result of the effective security strategy that the Bukele administration has executed since June 2019.
Three years have passed since San Salvador exited the group of cities with the highest rates of violent crime, according to rankings compiled by the World Population Review and the methodology of the ranking of the 50 most violent cities in the world by the Citizen Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice of Mexico.
The positive outcomes in security are a direct result of the implementation of the Territorial Control Plan (PCT), initiated in 2019, and the frontal battle against gangs carried out at the end of March 2022. President Bukele’s solid plan successfully lifted the country out of the world’s most violent nations, and now other Latin American countries are looking to replicate the model in their states to combat violence and crime.
The government launched the first phase of the PCT on June 20, 2019, with the objective of reducing homicide rates and overall criminality. Since its implementation, it has yielded positive results by lowering the average daily murder rate to 0.4 last year.
The year 2023 concluded as the safest in Salvadoran history, ending with a homicide rate of 2.4 per 100,000 inhabitants, a stark contrast to the 106.82 per 100,000 inhabitants recorded in 2015.
«El Salvador closes the safest year in its history and becomes the country with the lowest homicide rate in all of Latin America,» President Bukele announced on January 1 through the X network.
The successful plan of the Bukele administration restored peace and tranquility to the law-abiding population, who in previous years were harassed and threatened by various terrorist groups, structures dismantled under the state of emergency that has already led to the arrest of over 75,000 gang members.
The independent organization’s ranking released in the early days of 2024 details the 10 most violent cities: Tijuana, Mexico, with 138 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants; Acapulco, Mexico, with 111; Caracas, Venezuela, with 100; Ciudad Victoria, Mexico, with 86; Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, with 86.
Following closely are Irapuato, Mexico, with 81 per 100,000 inhabitants; Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela, with 78; Natal, Brazil, with 75; Fortaleza, Brazil, with 69; and Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela, also with 69.