Romania’s Honorary Consul in El Salvador, Ricardo Emanuel Salumi Barake, was killed in his home in San Salvador, local authorities announced on Sunday, according to News.ro. The Prosecutor General’s office announced on Twitter that this death is being investigated as homicide, but gave no further details.
The Honorary Consul’s body was found tied and gagged in his house, situated in a rich neighbourhood of the capital El Salvador. An investigation is ongoing, said a police spokesman.
The Foreign Ministry of El Salvador said that Salumi, a Salvadoran citizen, was the only diplomatic representative of Romania in the country.
The Romanian Embassy in Mexico has confirmed the crime.
Romania’s honorary consul in El Salvador is the second diplomat murdered in the country this year. On May 26 the Honorary Consul of Panama in El Salvador, Carlos Armando Lemus, was found dead in a car on a road in the capital.
The wave of violence has increased in the past two years in El Salvador and the homicide rate has overtook the one in neighbouring Honduras, which was considered the most violent country in the world.