Police and soldiers in El Salvador have surrounded the Cabanas region of the country in a move to support the ongoing war against gangs, new reports say.

As outlined by the BBC, the goal of the newly formed security line is to prevent gang members from leaving as well as disrupt their supply chains.

Criminal crack-down in El Salvador

The President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, posted on X – formerly Twitter – that 7,000 soldiers and 1,000 police officers were deployed to establish the “security fence”.

Bukele also said that Cabanas had “become the place with the largest number of terrorist cells”, with gang members hiding in rural areas.

He added that the police and soldiers will not move until “all the criminals” have been apprehended.

A state of emergency was declared in the Central American country in March 2022 and since then, over 70,000 suspected gang members have been arrested in a crack-down on criminal activity.