Mega prison locking up country's most dangerous criminals and 'no one sleeps'

13 June 2024 , 10:23

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A glimpse inside the Centre of Confinement of Terrorism in El Salvador, where hundreds of gang criminals are incarcerated for life (Image: Anadolu via Getty Images)

Disturbing pictures have provided a horrifying glimpse inside an El Salvador prison housing some of the country's more fearsome criminals.

Heavily-inked inmates crouch in a line with their hands on their heads in the chilling photos from the Centre for the Confinement of Terrorism. The top-security jail holds dangerous gang criminals after it was built for the purpose of combatting the country's rampant drug problem.

More than 12,000 prisoners are squeezed into four-tier bunks in cells holding up to 80 people. Among them are senior members of two of the country's biggest cartels, MS-13 and Barrio 18.

Heavily inked inmates bear the tattoos signifying their affiliation to different gangs (Anadolu via Getty Images)

The grim jail is part of President Nayib Bukele's tough crackdown on the country's epidemic of drugs and gang violence, with more than 70,000 arrests made in less than two years, Mail Online reports. Many of the criminals sport tattoos of the numbers 13 or 18 showing their correct gang affiliation.

Life inside the prison is brutal, with inmates forced to eat with their hands and only allowed to leave their cells for half an hour each day, with no access to natural light. Each cell contains two toilets, two washbasins, and 80 bunks that have no mattresses.

Inside WW1 military hospital abandoned for decades before new lease of life

Conditions inside the prison are brutal, with many in there for the rest of their lives (Anadolu via Getty Images)

No one is said to get any proper sleep or have any visitors in the all-white prison, which was toured by Salvadoran journalist Ruben Diez earlier this year for an inside scoop on life inside. Statistics released in El Salvador claim the number of homicides has plummeted by as much as 56.8% since the super-jail was opened.

Speaking to Diez, the prison's director Belarmino Garcia said hope for the prisoners' rehabilitation was next to none, so many will die behind bars. “This is a maximum security regime,” he said. “There is no visiting time for them.”

So tough were President Bukele's reforms on gang crime, that human rights legislation had to be scrapped to get them through, Daily Star reports, in a move highly criticised by Human Rights Watch. After declaring what he called a “state of exception,” Bukele ordered a crackdown that resulted in the arrest of some 55,000 suspected gang members.

Gang members are brought together for transfer in the presence of authorities at the super-jail (Anadolu via Getty Images)

Children as young as just 12 have been tried in court for affiliation with gangs, with 1,600 children arrested overall since November 2022. Bukele's reforms have been slammed by human rights groups, accusing the government of torture and ill-treatment of inmates.

The president however claims the current prison conditions are an improvement on previous jails, where gangs, he claimed, "had prostitutes and PlayStations" as guards "were sleeping on the floor". Prison officers now have their own barracks and are heavily armed with assault rifles.

High-tech airport-style body scanners make it almost impossible for prisoners to smuggle weapons or drugs into the jail when they are admitted, and with no visitors allowed, there is little chance of anything being brought in from the outside.

Kelly Williams