The government of El Salvador has moved the first 2,000 gang members to the new mega prison

The new mega prison built in The Saviorthe largest in America, already received the first 2,000 prisoners of the 40,000 it can accommodate.

This is what President Nayib Bukele proudly announced on his Twitter account this Friday, where he wrote that “this will be their new home, where they will live for decades, mixed, without being able to do any more harm to the population. “.

The building of the Terrorism Containment Center (CECOT), which alerted multiple human rights organizations, is the most recent step fight the gangs that El Salvador has been leading for months.

This gigantic prison is located on the outskirts of the city of Tecoluca -74 kilometers southeast of San Salvador- and stands out for its rigorous entry controls and high surveillance technology.

All of this was exposed in a video that the president shared on his social networks with the aforementioned message, in which he showed in detail how the transfer operation took place in the early hours of this Friday.

In the pictures you can see a group of gang members with the shirtless, wearing only white shorts and without any type of footwearguarded by police while they queuing in a large yard at another of the nation’s prisons.

Moments later, with hands cuffed behind the backare embarked on buses and transferred under high security to the new prison, where they arrived around dawn. The whole trip was guarded by several military helicopters that the buses flew over and had the support of hundreds of police officers, security officers from the Penitentiary Centers Department and even soldiers.

Once at CECOT, detainees were admitted to the cells in groups.

“Cell by cell, we are eliminating this cancer from society. Know that you will no longer leave CECOT, you will pay for what you are… cowardly terrorists”writes for his part the Minister of Justice and Security, Gustave Villatoro.

According to official figures, since Bukele ordered the exceptional regime and the intensive fight against gangs – mainly Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18– almost a year ago, the country experienced a dramatic drop in crime and violence rates.

The measure appeared as an urgent response high level of crime which was recorded then and reached a dangerous peak between March 25 and 27 of last year, when 87 such deaths were recorded.

Thus, in 2022 there would have been 57% reduction in homicides thanks to the arrest of some 64,000 suspected gang members or topics possibly related to it.

(With information from AFP and Reuters)

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