IPI is saddened by the Wednesday 2 September murder in El Salvador’s Tonacatepeque municipality of French-Spanish photojournalist and documentary-maker Christian Poveda.

Police found Poveda’s body in a car in the small village of El Rosario, with multiple bullet wounds to the head.

Poveda, who had closely followed the lives of El Salvador’s ‘Mara 18’ gang members in his 2008 documentary “La Vida Loca,” had on the day of his death set out to the Soyapango municipality to arrange interviews between female gang members and a French fashion magazine, the Associated Press reported.

Police arrested a suspected member of ‘Mara 18’ yesterday on suspicion of involvement in the murder, and investigations are ongoing.

“We have express orders from President Funes to work relentlessly to clear up this criminal act,” said El Salvador’s Minister for Justice and Security, Manuel Melgar, according to Spanish news agency EFE.

Poveda was a correspondent for various media outlets during El Salvador’s civil war from 1980 to 1992, and his documentary, “La Vida Loca”, documenting the lives of ‘Mara 18’ members in Soyapango’s ‘La Campanera’ district, won plaudits inside and outside Venezuela.

“We are deeply saddened to hear of the murder of Poveda, a brave journalist and film-maker,” said IPI Director, David Dadge. “We hope El Salvador’s authorities will stay true to their word, and bring all those responsible for this brutal killing to justice.”