Mara Salvatrucha

Jonathan is one of more than 800 Salvadorans who have requested asylum in Costa Rica so far this year. This is the story of why he left.

The U.S. Treasury accused two top figures in the notorious gang of orchestrating assassinations against officials.

According to the authorities, 23 policemen and six members of the military have been killed by gangs this year. A total of 1,194 people were killed in El Salvador between January 1 to April 5, according to official estimates.

The recent uptick in killings underscores the breakdown in a truce the gangs declared in March 2012, which was brokered by the Catholic Church with behind-the-scenes help from then president Mauricio Funes.

In March, the government passed an anti-extortion law that, among other measures, forbids companies from supplying cellphone signals near jails. Under the new law, a phone company who breaks the law is subject to a fine of $753,000 per day of continued infraction.

Rudolph “Rudy” Giuliani, the former New York City mayor (1994-2001) credited with dramatically reducing crime in the Big Apple, is about to take on a major challenge: advising Salvadoran authorities on how to fight crime in their country.

Central America is a region rife with problems of inequality, political corruption, weak institutions, poverty, displaced and marginalized populations, and a history of violence. Two journalists who are part of a group of fellow scribes who spent several years looking at those issues and trying to understand them have compiled enough stories to turn them into a book.