The attack occurred near a river in Milingo, a district under the jurisdiction of Suchitoto, located 44 kilometers (27 miles) north of San Salvador, a PNC spokesman told Efe.

Initial reports are that the dead and wounded gang members belonged to the Mara 18 gang.

The wounded gang members were taken to the hospital in Suchitoto, the PNC spokesman said.

Salvadoran media reported that the killings may have been a settling of scores between rival gangs, but the PNC spokesman did not confirm this theory.

El Salvador registered a record 4,365 murders, or an average of 12 per day, in 2009.

Last month, 404 people, or an average of 13 per day, were murdered in the Central American country, police figures show.

Officials blame much of the violence afflicting El Salvador on murderous youth gangs and other criminal outfits.

El Salvador’s two largest violent youth gangs, known as “maras,” are Mara 18 and Mara Salvatrucha.

Mara Salvatrucha is a criminal organization that evolved on the streets of Los Angeles during the 1980s, with most of its members young Salvadorans whose parents fled their nation’s erstwhile civil war for the United States.

Because many of the gang members were born in El Salvador, they were subject to deportation when rounded up during immigration crackdowns in California in the 1990s.

Sent “home” to a land they barely knew, they formed gangs that spread throughout El Salvador and to neighboring countries in Central America, where membership is now counted in the tens, or even hundreds of thousands, and gang members are engaged in murder, drug dealing, kidnapping and people smuggling.

In addition to those activities, gang members are blamed throughout Central America for a spike in rapes and robberies, and for running protection rackets to extort “taxes” from bus companies and owners of small businesses.