The El Salvador government said that it will cooperate in the arrest of 17 former soldiers who were allegedly involved in the killing of Jesuit priests.

Prosecutors said that the Salvadorian soldiers murdered six Jesuit priests in 1989 in order to silence them. The Jesuit priests were critical of the human rights abuses committed by the US-backed army in El Salvador's civil war.

According to The Guardian, after a Spanish judge sent a petition to Interpol on Monday, the government then announced on Wednesday the ordering of the arrest of the soldiers. The soldiers also shot and killed the Jesuit priests' housekeeper and her daughter. Five of the priests were reported to be Spanish and one was Salvadoran.

Presidential spokesman Eugenio Chicas told the media that once the legal requirements have been completed, the government can make the arrests.

"The only path for our security forces to take is to proceed with the arrests, that is, there's nothing to do but follow the law," Chicas said.

Colonel Inocente Montano, a former deputy defense minister, is among the accused. Montano was also arrested in 2011 for immigration fraud. US authorities said that they will extradite Montano to Spain.

Chicas added that the extradition of the former soldiers to Spain would depend on the decision of El Salvador's supreme court.

It was reported that Spain's high court said in 2011 that the ex-soldiers should be tried for the murders of the Jesuit priests. Interpol said the soldiers were wanted for extradition.

But the El Salvador supreme court ruled that Interpol required the soldiers be located, and not arrested or extradited.

A report with Crux says that the number of Christians in Latin America are numerous, but vulnerable. The murder of the six prominent Jesuits are just among the casualties of a decades-long civil war that has so far left 220,000 people dead.

Though the country's civil war has come to an end, the violence seems to have gotten worse. In 2014, the country has seen more homicides than any place on earth, which stems mostly from the fighting among criminal gangs, and between the gangs and the police.

Today, the Christians at greatest risk are no longer just Catholic activists, but Evangelicals and Pentecostals who are vocal against the influence of the gangs.

Pope Francis' roots in Latin America explains his sensitivity towards anti-Christian violence. 

The pontiff has decried violence against Christianity and has repeatedly referred to the persecution as a "ecumenism of blood."