Key Points
- The first 2,000 inmates have been moved to a mega-prison in El Salvador.
- The complex will eventually hold more than 40,000 prisoners.
- It is part of President Nayib Bukele “tough” policy on gang crime.
This article contains content that some may find distressing.
The largest mega-prison in the Americas has welcomed its first 2,000 inmates, with the new facility in El Salvador eventually expected to accommodate more than 40,000 suspected gangsters targeted in President Nayib Bukele’s “war” on crime.
Mr Bukele tweeted that “at dawn, in a single operation, we transferred the first 2,000 members to the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT)”.
Prisoners pictured at the ‘Center for the Confinement of Terrorism’. Credit: El Salvador Government
“This will be their new house, where they will live for decades, all mixed, unable to do any further harm to the population,” the president added.
So what will life be like for the inmates?
‘You will never walk out’
In his tweet, Mr Bukele posted a video showing barefoot, tattooed men wearing only white boxers, bent over and with their hands behind their shaven heads.
They were stacked closely together, each sitting with his legs on either side of the man in front of him as armed guards in balaclavas look on.
They are then pictured being loaded onto buses, hands and feet in shackles, to be taken to the new prison in a convoy that included helicopters.
At the new facility, the men were similarly stacked up before being led in large groups into their cells, where they are left sitting on the floor before stacked metal beds with no mattresses visible.
“We are eliminating this cancer from society,” justice and security minister Gustavo Villatoro said on Twitter.
“Know that you will never walk out of CECOT, you will pay for what you are … cowardly terrorists,” he added.
The new inmates were stacked closely together, each sitting with his legs on either side of the man in front of him as armed guards in balaclavas look on. Source: Supplied
100 prisoners to a cell
Built on Mr Bukele’s orders after he declared a “war” on gangs last March, the prison in Tecoluca — 74 kilometres southeast of the capital San Salvador — consists of eight buildings made of reinforced concrete.
Each one has 32 cells of about 100 square metres, designed to hold “more than 100” inmates, according to Public Works Minister Romeo Rodriguez.
Each cell has only two sinks and two toilets, while there are only 80 metal bunks for every 100 prisoners.
The inmates of the new prison have been told they will “never walk out”. Source: Supplied
“There will be no mattresses in the cells,” the prison warden — who wore a ski mask to protect his identity — told journalists when the project was unveiled.
Rights groups and observers have criticised the construction as a violation of incarceration standards, while social media was full of posts praising the president’s “toughness”.
Meanwhile, Moody’s Investors Service said improved security in El Salvador following the government’s crackdown on gangs could eventually boost investment as firms and consumers regain confidence.
An aerial view of the prisoners at the 40,000-capacity complex. Credit: El Salvador Government
While the prison is equipped with dining halls, exercise rooms and table tennis tables, they are exclusively for guards’ use.
Prisoners will leave the cell only for legal hearings by video conference, or to be punished in a windowless and unlit isolation cell.
Some 63,000 presumed gang members have been rounded up since Mr Bukele declared a state of emergency months ago, allowing arrests without warrants in the violence-plagued country.
Discussion about this post