Trailer for the documentary Children of the War.
Hijos de la Guerra (Children of the War) is a feature-length documentary film about the world's largest and most violent street gang: the Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13. The MS-13 gang spans the Americas with an estimated membership of 100,000 people across the United States and Central America. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has declared the MS-13 the fastest growing and most violent street gang in the United States. The Mara Salvatrucha was formed in Los Angeles in the late 1980s by Salvadoran Civil War refugees as a means to protect themselves from rival ethnic gangs. The newly formed gang channeled the widespread trauma of a genocidal civil war on entire generations of orphaned and abandoned children into fanatical violence. This formed the basis for MS's explosive growth. MS-13 has since become a growing threat throughout 33 states in the U.S. and in every country in Central America.