El Salvador seals off town as 10,000 police officers and soldiers hunt for gang

Soldiers arrive in Soyapango, El Salvador (Salvador Melendez/AP)

The government of El Salvador has sent 10,000 soldiers and police to seal off a town on the outskirts of the nation’s capital to hunt for gang members.

The operation is one of the largest mobilisations yet in President Nayib Bukele’s nine-month-old crackdown on street gangs that long extorted money from businesses and ruled many San Salvador neighbourhoods.