A murder rate that peaked at 106 per 100,000 nine years ago collapsed to 2.4 last year, making 2023 the safest year in El Salvador s history after a mass round-up of suspected gang members
Life in the vast Centre for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT) in Tecoluca is dire, with prisoners pleading for officials to give food and medicine for the terminally ill dying around them.
The prison s opening comes as part of a brutal crackdown on the two gangs, the pride of president Nayib Bukele s campaign to clean up national violence.