Muralists paint over traces of violence in Salvadoran neighborhood

A drone view shows some of the buildings in the Zacamil neighborhood that is being worked on by the Zacamil Project, an initiative led by a Salvadoran foundation that seeks to decorate humble and once violent communities with art, in Mejicanos, El Salvador, July 18, 2024. Italian artist Beatrice Vigoni paints a building as part of the Zacamil Project in Mejicanos, El Salvador, Aug. 13, 2024. A drone view shows members of the Fullpaint 360 collective installing cords in a mural titled "Constelacion de Zacamil" by Italian artist Adriano Lombardo in Mejicanos, El Salvador, July 30, 2024. A woman stands by a mural titled "Outside" in Mejicanos, El Salvador, July 11, 2024. A drone view shows a boy watching outside his apartment next to a mural titled "Outside," in Mejicanos, El Salvador, July 18, 2024. Members of the Fullpaint 360 collective paint a mural titled "Outside" designed by Salvadoran artist Fernando Orellana, in Mejicanos, El Salvador, July 2, 2024. A drone view shows members of the Fullpaint 360 collective painting clouds on a building in Mejicanos, El Salvador, Aug. 13, 2024.

From the window of her tin-sided shop outside El Salvador's capital, San Salvador, Esmeralda Quintanilla watches artists get to work in her neighborhood on walls still pockmarked by bullet holes from the country's civil war and gang conflict.