Central America
Salvadoran heroes who provided aid in Turkey return home
February 19 |
After nine days away from home, the Urban Search and Rescue Team (USAR) El Salvador and the Humanitarian Rescue Unit (HRU) of the Armed Forces, made up of 111 rescuers, military and health personnel, who carried out search and rescue work in Turkey, returned to Salvadoran soil.
This nation was strongly affected last February 6 by two earthquakes of magnitude 7.8 and 7.6 on the Richter scale, and El Salvador was one of the first countries to send rescue support.
The Salvadoran heroes landed on their return flight on Saturday afternoon at the San Oscar Arnulfo Romero International Airport, where they were received by the authorities of the Ministries of the Interior, Defense, Health, the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and the directors of Civil Protection and Firefighters.
“Thank you, a great job, it is a pride to work with you, it is a pride to have you at home, welcome heroes”, were the words of the Minister of the Interior, Juan Carlos Bidegain.
He added that thanks to the work done, El Salvador was able to demonstrate in Turkey that it has highly prepared teams that have now been placed among the elite USAR teams around the world.
“We are the ones who are grateful to you, what you have done, what you have done is incredible, what you have done is wonderful,” said Bidegain.
For his part, Erick Vázquez, lieutenant of the USAR-EL SALVADOR group, in his report to the authorities, highlighted the rescue of two people alive.
“We have done a job with all the logistics involved, we went to put into practice everything we learned. We had the joy of performing two rescues, a minor and a woman of approximately 30 years of age, we are proud to have done it”, celebrated Vázquez.
He explained that during their stay in Turkey, from February 9 to 17, they worked in 15 buildings, in which the canine unit and the rescuers did the work they were assigned to do, earning the respect and admiration of USAR groups from the rest of the world.
“Leaders of other USAR groups around the world have told us that we have positioned ourselves among the best, along with France, Germany and Egypt, among others,” Vazquez said.
The recognition given by the leaders of other USAR groups was also shared by Defense Minister Rene Francis Merino Monroy.
“I want to highlight the level of the two search teams of El Salvador [USAR and UHR] to provide assistance to other countries,” said the official.
At the same time he added: “We have in El Salvador a response team that can highly prepared to help foreign countries”.
Merino Monroy congratulated the USAR and UHR team of the Armed Forces for putting the name of El Salvador on high and fulfilling the mission entrusted to them.
“The mission that was entrusted to them, to the USAR and UHR group of the Armed Forces, to rescue lives was fulfilled, in addition to reviewing and cleaning each of the buildings in which they worked,” said the minister.
Turkey’s ambassador to El Salvador, Gül Büyükerşen, also received the heroes and expressed her gratitude for the support of the Salvadoran teams, as well as to President Nayib Bukele’s willingness to help from the first moment.
“President Nayib Bukele was one of the first leaders who spoke with my president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, by phone (after the earthquakes),” said the diplomat.
In addition, he stressed that “El Salvador may be a small country (in territory), but it has a big heart”.
Central America
Mexico and Guatemala launch joint security operation after Agua Zarca border attack
The Government of Mexico announced on Tuesday that it has strengthened coordination with Guatemala following an armed confrontation in the community of Agua Zarca, in Guatemala’s Huehuetenango department, where a soldier was wounded in an attack attributed to organized-crime groups operating on both sides of the border.
The Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, Omar García Harfuch, confirmed that Mexico is exchanging information with Guatemalan authorities and that Mexican Army units have been deployed along the border to reinforce surveillance and assist in reconnaissance operations.
The attack, Guatemala’s Defense Ministry stated, reflects the “criminal dynamics” dominating that border region, where different groups compete for drug and arms trafficking routes.
According to Guatemala’s Defense Ministry, the clash left a soldier wounded in the leg after suspected criminals crossed from Mexico and opened fire. The wounded soldier is reportedly in stable condition. Authorities also seized high-caliber weapons, explosives, tactical gear and drones, which were handed over for forensic analysis.
Mexican Defense Secretary General Ricardo Trevilla Trejo announced that a coordinated plan of operations will be launched involving both Mexican and Guatemalan forces along the border to counter these criminal networks.
Harfuch emphasized that the violence is not isolated but symptomatic of the ongoing struggle between criminal organizations for territorial control, and reiterated Mexico’s commitment to bilateral security cooperation and its intention to strengthen institutional presence in vulnerable border zones.
Central America
Honduran University: Nullifying elections without proof of fraud undermines popular sovereignty
The National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) stated that the ruling party Libre’s request to annul the general elections is not supported by law in the absence of evidence of fraud, and that such a move puts democracy at risk. The country has yet to learn who its next president will be, following the elections held on November 30.
In a press release, the university said that “a general annulment, lacking structural proof of fraud, constitutes a direct violation of the principle of preserving electoral acts and of the legal certainty of the democratic system.”
It further noted that electoral annulment “is a legal institution of strictly exceptional and restrictive nature, and a last resort, whose application is constitutionally legitimate only when there is full, objective, direct, and decisive proof of the structural legal destruction of the popular will.”
“Annulment is not an ordinary mechanism for political challenges, nor an instrument to correct electoral defeats, but an institutional safeguard intended exclusively to protect the sovereign people when their will has been replaced through proven structural fraud,” the statement continued.
UNAH emphasized that annulling the elections without verified evidence of fraud “would amount, in constitutional terms, to an indirect disregard of popular sovereignty, altering the very essence of the democratic rule of law.”
Liberal Party candidate Salvador Nasralla said on X that he is prepared to compare his tally sheets with those of the National Electoral Council (CNE) of Honduras. Since Friday, Nasralla has fallen behind his opponent Nasry Asfura of the National Party.
Central America
CNA director says Libre’s defeat stems from “lack of substance,” not messaging
The director of the National Anticorruption Council (CNA), Gabriela Castellanos, stated on social media that the Liberty and Refoundation Party (Libre) did not fail due to a lack of messaging but because of a “lack of substance.”
“It wasn’t socialism; it was a populist caricature without theory, coherence, or the ability to translate into solutions for the everyday lives of the Honduran people,” Castellanos said.
“The defeat of Libre cannot be explained solely in electoral terms. It reflects a deeper rupture: the gap between a narrative that tried to call itself ‘socialist’ and a citizenry that does not live off ideological abstractions but off concrete urgencies,” she added.
“In Honduras, a discourse grounded in abstract concepts can never replace the urgent conversation about prices, jobs, security, and access to basic needs. That inability to turn theory into solutions widened the gap that ultimately fractured its candidacy,” she noted.
While the right continues to gain votes following the elections, Libre’s presidential candidate, Rixi Moncada, has secured only 19.11% of public support, placing her in third position. “Socialism, in its rigorous sense, is not about activist shouting or improvised directives. It is critical thinking, structural analysis, and a deep understanding of how society works. Libre did not offer that. It offered an impoverished version — an ‘occasional socialism,’ reduced to recycled slogans, without method, without bread, and without the people,” Castellanos said in response to the party’s reaction over the weekend.
“The Honduran people rejected an empty discourse,” she concluded.
Mexico and Guatemala launch joint security operation after Agua Zarca border attack
Honduran University: Nullifying elections without proof of fraud undermines popular sovereignty
CNA director says Libre’s defeat stems from “lack of substance,” not messaging
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