People / group

Mara Salvatrucha

Also known as MS-13

Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, is a criminal gang formed in the 1980s by young Salvadoran immigrants in Los Angeles, many of them refugees from the civil war. After mass deportations from the United States in the 1990s it spread to El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, where it and rival gangs drove homicide rates among the highest in the world.

Mara Salvatrucha
Image: SSCreader · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Mentioned in 1 profile

Republic of El SalvadorImpact

See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Mara Salvatrucha. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/mara-salvatrucha
MLA
“Mara Salvatrucha.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/mara-salvatrucha. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Mara Salvatrucha.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/mara-salvatrucha.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Mara Salvatrucha’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/mara-salvatrucha (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻