New photos reveal mega-prison in El Salvador built to hold 40K inmates — with no prisoner ever freed
A series of bone-chilling new photos show the barbarous conditions inside a mega-prison in El Salvador that was built to hold gangbangers from the country’s most violent criminal organizations — and no prisoner who’s ever walked in has breathed the free air ever again.
Dubbed the Centre for the Confinement of Terrorism, the mammoth facility in Tecoluca can hold about 40,000 prisoners — the equivalent of two fully packed Madison Square Gardens — in the most inhumane of conditions.
The photos, released by the government of El Salvador, show scores of shirtless, heavily tattooed inmates being shepherded into the maximum-security center, which houses them in cramped cells under harsh artificial light and the constant threat of torture or death.
In one picture, the men pack themselves into a transport bus with their shaved heads tilted forward and their hands tied behind their backs.
In another, the semi-naked prisoners squat in a long line, their heads again tilted forward until they’re nearly touching the back of the inmate in front of them — as heavily armed guards stand watch.
Others show the men squatting on the floor of massive rooms, their hands on their heads as the guards take stock.
More than 2,000 gang members from jails across the country were just transferred to the mega-jail, according to the Daily Mail.
Most are members of the country’s main gangs, MS-13 and Barrio 18.
Their confinement is part of President Nayib Bukele’s ruthless crackdown on the narcotics-fueled groups. Authorities have locked up more than 70,000 people in the last two years in the nation’s effort to eradicate street crime, the outlet added.
Guests at the prison are forced to eat their meals of rice, pasta or hard-boiled eggs with their hands instead of utensils, which guards fear they could turn into deadly weapons.
Inmates are only allowed out of their cells for a half-hour each day, and can only use their own bodyweight to exercise, since authorities don’t want them bludgeoning each other with weights and barbells, the Mail said.
No one who has walked into what activists call the “black hole of human rights” with cuffs on has ever seen daylight again, the Mail reported.
Activists compare the facility with Hitler’s concentration camps, and a report by human rights group Cristosal found that 174 inmates had been tortured and killed this year, the outlet added.
The country’s human rights commissioner, however, has insisted the inmates are in “good condition” and their rights are being respected.
For better or worse, Bukele’s crackdown has had an effect.
The country’s homicides dropped nearly 57% in 2022 — a significant improvement for a nation often considered the murder capital of the world.
