San Salvador, January 17 (RHC-teleSUR) -- United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited El Salvador Friday to celebrate the 23rd anniversary of the peace accords that ended the country’s 12-year civil war, which killed more than 75,000 people.

Ban urged all Salvadorans to remember that spirit of reconciliation as the Central American country grapples with a rise in gang-related violence. According to human rights organizations, there is still an average of 12 killings every day.

"We're very worried at the levels of insecurity and violence across Central America and El Salvador," Ban told reporters at at the Presidential Palace in the capital San Salvador.

Salvadoran President Salvador Sanchez Ceren, a Marxist and former guerrilla leader, met with Ban, and vowed to fight crime through the strengthening of public institutions.

The U.N. chief is on an official Central American tour aimed at addressing the high rates of violence in that region. Thursday, Ban was in Honduras which is currently considered as the world's deadliest country.

According to official data, Central America is home to some of the bloodiest countries in the world, blighted by corrupt institutions, widespread gang culture and chronic unemployment, which last year sparked a wave of child migration into the United States.