El Salvador marks murder-free day

Source: Reuters

No one was murdered in El Salvador on Saturday, officials said, in what was the first homicide-free day in nearly three years for the Central American country plagued by violent drug gangs.

"After years when the number of murders reached alarming levels of up to 18 per day, we saw not one homicide in the country," President Mauricio Funes said in a statement released on Sunday.

The murder-free day was the first recorded since leftist Funes took office in June 2009.

At the beginning of Funes' term, the country had an average of 12 murders a day, but that tally climbed closer to 18 per day in early 2012.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/16/el-salvador-murder-free-day