Mega-prison in El Salvador for 40,000 suspected gangsters opens up

A massive prison complex has been opened in El Salvador as a result of the country's inmate population having risen drastically.

The prison - dubbed the Terrorism Confinement Centre - has more than doubled El Salvador's incarceration capacity, with it being able to hold 40,000 inmates, making it now one of the largest prison facilities in Latin America.

Its opening comes as a result of over 62,000 suspected gang members and their allies being arrested by the country's police and army since March, when the country's government suspended some constitutional rights, able to arrest people without warrants.

A staggering total of one percent of El Salvador's entire adult population are now behind bars.

@nayibbukele/Twitter

Yesterday (Friday, 24 February) the first 2,000 gang members were transferred to the centre 'in a single operation' according to a tweet by President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele.

The post continues: "This will be their new house, where they will live for decades, mixed up, unable to do any more harm to the population.

"We continue…#GuerraContraPandillas [War Against Gangs]."

The gang members' 'new house' features electric fences surrounding its perimeter, alongside a 36ft high concrete wall.

There are 32 cells, secured by bars made of steel, with iron sheet cabins but no mattresses.

@nayibbukele/Twitter

Each cell is reported as being able to hold 'more than one hundred' inmates, and each cabin will sleep 80 people, as per The Telegraph.

Alongside the 32 cells, there are a series of other lock-ups where any 'misbehaving' inmate will go for 'punishment' - the special cells don't have any windows.

The 40,000 prison complex was first revealed as being in the works in July 2022.

Authorities have received backlash from human rights organisations when some constitutional rights were suspended by El Salvador's Congress in March, in a bid to crack down on more gang members after a spike in gang-related killings.

@nayibbukele/ Twitter

Human Rights Watch claim many of the over 60,000 arrests of gang members and their allies since March 2022 'appear to have been based on the appearance or social background of the detainees'.

It continued: "Human rights organizations, including Cristosal and Human Rights Watch, have documented serious abuses by security forces during the state of emergency, including arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture and other forms of ill-treatment, and due process violations.

"Cristosal reported over 2,900 cases of human rights violations during the state of emergency."

@nayibbukele/ Twitter

On state television, the director of El Salvador's prisons, Osiris Luna, warned incoming inmates: "All those home boys, those terrorists in the organisation that made our beloved Salvadoran people suffer, will be house and subjected to a severe regimen."

President Bukele continued: "El Salvador has managed to go from being the world’s most dangerous country, to the safest country in the Americas.

"How did we do it? By putting criminals in jail. Is there space? There is now."

Topics: World News, True crime, Crime

Poppy Bilderbeck

Poppy Bilderbeck is a Senior Journalist at LADbible Group. She graduated from The University of Manchester in 2021 with a First in English Literature and Drama, where alongside her studies she was Editor-in-Chief of The Tab Manchester. Poppy is most comfortable when chatting about all things mental health, is proving a drama degree is far from useless by watching and reviewing as many TV shows and films as possible and is such a crisp fanatic the office has been forced to release them in batches.