La Prensa Grafica reports grenade explosion downtown. Original story here.

Roughly Googled improved Translation

By David Marroquin La Prensa Grafica

MS 13 gang members threw a grenade against a group of 18 gang members who were drinking on the premises of former San Jose park in downtown San Salvador with victims being at least 11 people, including two children, police said.

“At the time of the explosion was a rush (mass exodus) of people ran everywhere. Some even left their meals,” said a young woman who works as a waitress in one of the cantinas.

Also street vendors who have set up their sales on North Sixth Avenue and First Street East, left abandoned their posts. “Within seconds, all was left alone, there was not a single soul,” said a witness.

The first version that Police heard indicated that it was the explosion of an oven propane tank exploded accidentally caused by gun from a customer drinking at a bar.  However, that version was discarded later when firefighters quelled the blaze and discovered the hole left by a detonation device.

Police sources explained that before the explosion, one of the MS gang roamed the area and saw the rivals.  Several minutes had elapsed when he returned in company of other gang members and threw the grenade into the room where 18 were present.

Comandos de Salvamento moved transported at least ten injured people to hospitals Rosales, Social Security and Benjamin Bloom ERs. Among the injured are Samuel Antonio Linares, Karen Elizabeth Marvel, Ana Margarita Baires, Edenilson Leopoldo García, Ana Teresa Merino, Blanca Rosa Jarquín Rosales, Ana Beatriz Pérez Asunción, and Brenda Torres Esmeralda Cabrera.

Also were injured from shrapnel Nuria Elizabeth Ventura, 12, and Jennifer Rhodes Estefani Jarquin, nine, and Ricardo Garcia Martinez, 72, and Pocasangre Bernarda Hernandez, 66.  This is the third grenade explosion that occurs in downtown San Salvador this year. The first two killed three people and there were more than a dozen injured.