El Salvador muralists paint over traces of violence in San Salvador neighborhood

By Nelson Renteria

MEJICANOS, El Salvador (Reuters) - From the window of her tin-sided shop outside El Salvador's capital San Salvador, Esmeralda Quintanilla watches artists get to work in her neighborhood on walls still pockmarked by bullet holes from the country's civil war and gang conflict.

Armed with brushes, paint and spray cans, muralists and graffiti artists have already covered the walls of several of the 40 five-story units in a housing complex in the Zacamil neighborhood of the Mejicanos district.

"With the murals, everything looks really nice," said Quintanilla, a 55-year-old seamstress who has lived in the neighborhood nearly half her life.

"You start to see all this and it gives the place a different image. I feel really happy, proud."

The dozen murals already completed include a Mesoamerican pyramid, pixelated depictions of the Virgin Mary, and works straight out of the artists' imaginations.

The initiative in the once-violent neighborhood is led by a Salvadoran foundation that seeks to fill communities with art. Its aim in Zacamil is to create stories-high murals over the next two years on nearly every wall of the complex, which houses around 4,000 residents.

Zacamil got a break from decades of violence two years ago, when President Nayib Bukele launched a nationwide crackdown on gangs. The state of emergency - which human rights groups have said Bukele must end amid reports of abuses - has put almost 82,000 alleged gang members in prison.

Even with the murals improving the neighborhood's appearance, chronic infrastructure issues remain, with garbage piled up in the streets and storm drains clogged. TV antennas, power cables, and clothes strewn out windows across clotheslines also dot the neighborhood.

Many Zacamil residents fled in 1989 when fighting between the Salvadoran army and the former leftist guerrilla group, Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) nearly destroyed the Mejicanos district.

When they returned, many found homes damaged by two earthquakes in 2001 or invaded by gang members.

"There are always problems, but this is (giving the neighborhood) a facelift," said a 70-year-old resident who declined to give his name.

El Salvador's bloody, 12-year civil war from late 1979 to January 1992 killed more than 75,000 people.

(Reporting by Nelson Renteria; Writing by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez; Editing by Tom Hogue)