SUMMARY
El Salvador was declared independent in 1856 after centuries of Spanish colonial rule and a brief membership in the United Provinces of Central America. For much of its modern history, political and economic power was concentrated in the hands of an elite oligarchy known as las catorce. In the late 1970s, growing unrest over inequality and repression gave rise to leftist insurgencies, including the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), which led to a brutal civil war that lasted from 1980 to 1992. The majority of the violence was carried out by state forces and affiliated death squads, particularly during counterinsurgency efforts.
Since the 1992 peace accords, El Salvador has not seen a conventional armed conflict, but the country has been severely affected by gang violence, with intermittent spikes in killings and clashes. Criminal networks gained strength and became a major source of insecurity, shaping the country’s social and political landscape for decades to come. Since 1989, El Salvador has experienced the intrastate, non-state and one-sided categories of organized violence, as defined by UCDP.
2023
El Salvador continued to face gang-related violence, primarily involving MS-13 (El Salvador) and M18 (El Salvador). The government’s crackdown under the “state of exception” initiated in 2022 led to a significant drop in homicides. Despite a decline in large-scale gang violence, clashes continue to occur sporadically, including within the prison system. In 2023, the UCDP did not record incidents reaching the 25-death threshold for active conflict.
Organized violence in El Salvador
The roots of El Salvador’s civil war lay in the escalating political unrest of the 1970s. In March 1972, a military faction led by Colonel Benjamín Mejía unsuccessfully attempted a coup against President Fidel Sánchez Hernández, marking an early stage of intra-state conflict. Throughout the decade, the government intensified repression—both officially and through right-wing militias—while support for radical leftist groups grew rapidly.
By 1979 five of these groups turned to armed resistance; the organizations engaged in an intra-state conflict in 1979-1980 were ERP (Ejército revolucionario del pueblo, People’s Revolutionary Army), FAL (Fuerzas armadas de liberación, Armed Liberation Forces), FARN (Fuerzas armadas de resistencia nacional, Armed Forces of National Resistance), FPL (Fuerzas populares de liberación Farabundo Marti, Farabundo Marti Liberation Forces) and PRTC (Partido revolucionario de trabajadores centroamericanos, Revolutionary Party of Central American Workers).
This mounting tension culminated in full-scale civil war, which officially began in 1980 when these groups united into one coalition organization called the FMLN (Frente Farabundo Marti para la liberación nacional, Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation), named after Farabundo Marti, the communist leader of the El Salvadoran peasant revolution of 1932. The FMLN subsequently fought the government in the years 1980-1991 and the intra-state conflict was terminated with the UN-brokered Chapultepec Peace Accords signed in 1992. The FMLN subsequently disarmed and became a political party. The civil war lasted 12 years, during which an estimated 75,000 people were killed, and thousands more disappeared. U.S. support for the Salvadoran government during this period further intensified the conflict.
Although El Salvador did not experienced a traditional armed conflict since 1992, gang violence was pervasive, especially involving MS-13 (El Salvador) and M18 (El Salvador). These groups, originally formed in the U.S., expanded in El Salvador following mass deportations in the 1990s and 2000s. Since the mid-2000s, turf wars and extortion-related violence caused thousands of deaths, including several years where homicide rates were among the highest globally. In recent years, the government’s militarized approach suppressed gang activity but raised concerns over long-term democratic backsliding and human rights abuses.
Pre-1989 Conflicts
El Salvador’s history of political violence dated back to the early 20th century. A notable early conflict was the 1932 peasant uprising led by communist leader Farabundo Martí, which was brutally repressed by the military, resulting in the massacre of up to 30,000 mostly Indigenous people—an event known as La Matanza. Throughout the mid-20th century, the country was governed by military-led regimes, with periodic repression of opposition groups, trade unionists, and rural communities.
El Salvador was also involved in an inter-state conflict. In July 1969 El Salvador sent in troops into Honduran territory and fighting ensued for four days until a cease-fire was put in place after pressure from the Organization of American States and the U.S.. The short inter-state conflict is commonly known as the ‘Football War’, so called because the immediate provocation came from violence surrounding World Cup playoffs between the national teams of both countries. However, the underlying issues were largely economic and revolved around harsher immigration laws and land reform policies in Honduran which disfavored the large number of Salvadoran immigrants and stirred strong reactions in El Salvador. A peace agreement was signed eleven years later, in 1980, and the actual border demarcation was arbitrated by the International Court of Justice in 1992, awarding most of the disputed area to Honduras.
El Salvador as a secondary warring party
El Salvador provided secondary warring support to the Iraqi government during the intra-state conflict that began in 2003, primarily through its participation in the U.S.-led coalition. As part of the international stabilization effort, El Salvador deployed several contingents of troops—known as Cuscatlán Battalions—to assist with security, reconstruction, and peacekeeping tasks. Though limited in number, Salvadoran forces remained active in Iraq for several years, making El Salvador one of the few Latin American countries to contribute troops to the mission.
