Coming face to face with inmates in El Salvador's mega-jail - BBC News

The BBC’s Leire Ventas is granted rare access to Cecot, a secretive maximum security prison.

1 day agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Lissette Lemus/BBCImage caption, In the cells, the prisoners sleep in bunk beds with four tiersBy Leire VentasSpecial correspondent, BBC News Mundo, El SalvadorHundreds of eyes are upon us. With shaven heads, dressed in pristine white, and heavily tattooed, the prisoners know they are being watched and return the gaze from the other side of the bars.

We are in Cecot (Centre for the Confinement of Terrorism), a maximum security jail built a year ago by the Salvadoran government to imprison "high-ranking" members of the country's main gangs.

A gargantuan complex constructed in the middle of nowhere, it symbolises President Nayib Bukele's controversial security policy more than any other project.

Critics of the president have called it a "black hole of human rights", where international guidelines on prisoner rights are flouted.

Miguel Sarre, a former member of the United Nations Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture, has described it as a "concrete and steel pit".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-68244963

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