MEJICANOS, El Salvador Sept 13 (Askume) – Esmeralda Quintanilla watched from the window of her tin shop outside El Salvador’s capital, San Salvador, as her neighboring artists worked on walls riddled with bullets from war and gang conflict.
Graffiti artists armed with brushes, paint and spray cans created several paintings on the walls of a five-story unit in a residential complex of 40 in the Jacamil neighborhood of the Mejicanos district.
“Everything looks so beautiful because of the graffiti,” said Quintanilla, a 55-year-old seamstress who has lived in the area nearly half her life.
“You start to see all of this, and it creates a different image of the place. I’m very happy and proud.”
More than a dozen pre-painted murals include Mesoamerican pyramids, pixelated depictions of the Virgin Mary, and artworks born from the artist’s imagination.
In this once violent area, the initiative is led by the Salvador Foundation, which hopes to saturate communities with art. Zakamir’s goal is to paint huge murals on nearly every wall of the complex of about 4,000 residents over the next two years.
Two years ago, Jacquemil got a reprieve from decades of violence when President Nayib Bukele launched a nationwide crackdown on gangs. Human rights groups have called on Bukele to end the state of emergency , which has imprisoned some 82,000 alleged gang members amid reports of abuses.
While graffiti has improved the neighborhood’s appearance, chronic infrastructure problems remain, with trash-strewn streets and clogged drains. TV antennas, wires and clothespins stretched from window sills to hang clothespins were also scattered around the neighborhood.
In 1989, fighting broke out between the Salvadoran army and the former leftist guerrilla group Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), nearly destroying the Mejicanos area and causing many Zacamil residents to flee.
When they returned, many of their homes were damaged by two earthquakes in 2001 or they were attacked by gang members.
“There are always problems, but this is giving a new look (to the community),” said a 70-year-old resident who asked not to be named.
El Salvador experienced 12 years of bloody civil war from late 1979 to January 1992, resulting in more than 75,000 deaths.
