According to Martínez and his team at El Faro, the murder rate in El Salvador dropped from mid-March through April, from about 23 a day to 10 per day, in large part because gang leaders agreed to reduce murders during their negotiations with the government. The small Central American country with one of the worst murder rates in the world went 24 hours without

a single homicide, said Howard Augusto Cotto of the National Civil Police. The investigation is principally based on finding a person who can tell you what happened. The country is well on its way to surpassing last year’s total of 6,640 murders, which was itself a 70 percent increase over the previous year.
As the homicide rate in El Salvador declines, the country records its first day in the last two years without a homicide.