El Salvador prison crackdown: Activists criticise president

El Salvador’s president has launched a crackdown on gang members in prisons.

Amid the threat of coronavirus in Latin America, the small Central American country of El Salvador is also dealing with another problem, the endemic violence that has made it one of the most murderous countries in the world in recent years.

It comes after the country saw its highest single-day homicide tally on Friday, with 22 people killed.

But extreme measures in the new crackdown on gang members in prison, including completely sealing off the prisons to allow no contact with the outside world, by President Nayib Bukele has proved deeply controversial

Al Jazeera’s John Holman reports.