MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Drug-trafficking gang violence reigns supreme in Argentine city of Rosario

Governor Pullaro implemented Bukele-style prison measures for gang members, which triggered the deadly response

Gang violence in the Argentine city of Rosario has taken the lives of four people in one week as local and federal authorities remain baffled about how to tackle the increasingly worrying situation.

A 39-year-old bus driver died Sunday after being shot last Thursday, due to which he had been hospitalized. He joined the list of two cab drivers and a petrol station worker whose crime was caught on camera from different angles and went viral.

Schools and other facilities where people usually gather were warned that they would also be attacked shortly, in a move to cause terror and keep residents inside their homes all day long unless when absolutely necessary. The gruesome picture recalls that of Ecuador, according to local analysts.

In this scenario, federal authorities announced Sunday the creation of an Operative Board with the Government of Santa Fe, the Public Prosecutor's Office, and the City Rosario, at the request of Governor Maximiliano Pullaro who was unable to attend Friday's convention at Casa Rosada with Chief Executive leaders from other provinces.

The Government of Santa Fe described the perpetrators of these crimes as “terrorists” seeking to restore prison privileges for their incarcerated gang members after Pullaro boasted he was implementing a correctional regime mimicking that of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.

The Pullaro provincial administration underlined that these gangs were “against all the people of Rosario and Santa Fe” who want “the application of the law to prevent them from continuing to commit crimes behind bars.”

Teacher guilds in Rosario ordered a “total cessation of activities” and called for a “regional strike” on Monday at public schools given “the escalation of criminal violence,” the union Amsafé Rosario said in a statement Sunday.

“The situation in Rosario is really very serious. Four workers murdered in a few days are the brutal expression of narco-criminal groups that seem to act without the State being able to put limits”, expressed the teachers, who also conveyed their solidarity to “the families and colleagues of the victims.”

“The provocative and violent actions of the provincial government” have only “aggravated the situation” after authorities “for years” tried “repressive measures and successive deployments of federal troops that have ... ostensibly failed,” Amsafé went on.

“Drug violence is combated by cutting its links with sectors of political, police, and economic power and with in-depth responses to the serious problems of poverty and inequality,” the teachers' union went on in the aftermath of other strikes linked to wage bargaining to cope with the country's rampant inflation.

Rosario bus and cab services will not be operational on Monday, it was also announced.

Security Minister Patricia Bullrich announced federal troops would be deployed in Rosario while Defense Minister Luis Petri was to be traveling to the area shortly. The Crisis Committee will be chaired by Bullrich and co-chaired by Pullaro, it was also explained.

“The national government received the call and the concern of Governor Pullaro and arranged a number of immediate measures to help the province of Santa Fe in this complex moment,” Interior Minister Guillermo Francos said.