Below is a transcript of this El Faro video special, coupled with a newly curated selection of photos by Carlos Barrera, many of which were included in his 2025 World Press Photo-winning portfolio, Life and Death in a Country without Constitutional Rights.
The voices of sources interviewed are sometimes identified by only an initial or one name. While most requested a degree of anonymity, their experiences represent thousands of Salvadorans imprisoned since March 27, 2022, when the Bukele administration responded to the collapse of its covert gang negotiations by suspending basic due process rights.
While watching the video, for subtitles in English, select the gear button on the YouTube interface and choose “English (United States)” from the closed-caption menu.
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HOST ÓSCAR MARTÍNEZ: In El Salvador, for three and a half years, torture has been systematic in prison.
EDUVAY GUZMÁN, SURVIVOR ONE: That's where it all started. They took us, piled up, handcuffed, hands behind our backs and packed together. From here, from Ilopango, to Izalco. That trip was tedious. I peed in my boxers. I remember how my legs, my arms, and my whole body couldn’t bear it. We all felt the same. Some cried, others screamed: “Aaayyy, I can't take it.”
ALBA, SURVIVOR TWO: I remember them saying to me: “If you don't eat that food, we're going to punish you. You have to eat that food because, if you don't eat it, we're going to take you to the punishment cell, and there you will spend five days without eating, without seeing sunlight, drinking water, nothing.”
RELATIVE OF WALTER SANDOVAL, WHO DIED IN PRISON: He had several injuries all over: on my arms, my shoulders; it was really torture. There were bruises.
FIDEL ZAVALA, SURVIVOR THREE: When I say that I witnessed people who came out dead, when I say that I witnessed people on the ground being kicked, punched, being in Mariona… I don't know why they beat him up, but when they put him back in the compound, they put him in a wheelchair.
HOST: The security strategy that dismantled the gangs began in March 2022. On March 26, the Mara Salvatrucha-13 perpetrated 62 homicides, the most violent day on record in the entire postwar period. That massacre marked the end of the Bukele government's pact with the gangs, which we have detailed in many other investigations. A day later, the Legislative Assembly, with a Bukelista majority, and on Bukele's orders, approved a suspension of constitutional rights known as a state of exception. Since then, it has been extended every month, more than 40 times.
This regime of exception gave powers to the police and military to capture anyone they believed to be a suspect, without evidence. It also allowed prosecutors and judges to extend the terms of imprisonment indefinitely. Under the regime of exception there is no right to defense, to visits, to privacy of communications. Over time, the regime put an end to the gangs and also due process. El Salvador is now the country with the highest incarceration rate in the world. One in every 57 inhabitants is in prison.
The dismantling of the gangs was a fundamental change in the lives of millions of Salvadorans who now feel safer in their neighborhoods or no longer have to pay extortion. But the regime has been a torment for thousands, even those who were victims of the gangs. This is the security model that Bukele is selling to the world.
The horror you will hear in this video has been the product of the most publicized policy of Bukelismo. When in other countries, politicians say they want to copy the Bukele method, they cannot ignore that the state of exception has been their banner. The main actors of the Salvadoran dictatorship, starting with Nayib Bukele himself, have repeatedly defended the mass incarceration and arbitrariness. And the majority of Salvadorans still applaud this repressive model.
“Not a single civil liberty affected”
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT ERNESTO CASTRO: The initiative of the President of the Republic, through the Council of Ministers is hereby approved, extending the state of exception throughout the national territory...
DIRECTOR OF PRISONS OSIRIS LUNA: With the state of exception and with the precise orders we are executing from the president, no gang member will ever set foot again in any neighborhood or community, nor cause mourning and pain to the Salvadoran people.
VICE PRESIDENT FÉLIX ULLOA: Never, since the state of exception was declared, has a single civil liberty been affected. Not a single one.
HOST: Bukele has defended his police state to such an extent that he even romanticized it during his visit with Donald Trump in 2025, the U.S. president wanted to copy his catchphrase.
PRESIDENT NAYIB BUKELE AT THE WHITE HOUSE: Sometimes they say that we imprisoned thousands. I like to say that we actually liberated millions. So, you know, like…
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That's very good. Who gave him that line? Do you think I can use that?
HOST: Meanwhile, horror stories continue to emerge from the country.
MR. H, SURVIVOR ONE: Perhaps the torture lasted for an hour, while they were beating us with batons like this, kicking us like this on the heels of our feet, in the ribs, on the head, on the abdomen, and with the baton they hit us on the back and told us to forget our families, forget everything.
FIDEL ZAVALA, SURVIVOR TWO: And another blow, and another blow, and another blow, and another blow. Why?
BACK TO MR. H, SURVIVOR ONE: They threw gas at us; they said it was part of the welcome. They said that the first night was not a time for sleeping, but to suffer. One case in particular really hurt me so much. It was that of a boy who died at the end of June, but he died from the same beating that he was given when he entered the prison. When he entered, they had broken some of his ribs. My skin started to fall off, all this skin fell off… everything, my face... ugly. I was left all patchy, with all the pieces of skin. It was pitiful. They said that the only thing they were waiting for was for him to die. “Die already, it's better, and we'll pull you out.” That's what they said…
This Is Not About CECOT
HOST: The voices you hear in this video are those of 27 people who have been imprisoned in El Salvador under the regime of exception. El Faro has collected these testimonies since June 2023. Since 2023, we have verified that none of them had a history of ties to gangs, that they had the jobs they said they had, that, in fact, many had been victims of gangs. But the interviews are the best proof of their innocence. There is no access to prisons. Most families do not know where their prisoners are, as in the clandestine prisons of the military regimes of the last century.
Organizations such as Human Rights Watch consider many detainees victims of forced disappearance, but those interviewed were found innocent by the justice system and released after months or weeks of torment. Upon their release, they told their stories, some showing their faces. Most requested anonymity. Some are relatives who only received a corpse. None of the testimonies you hear in this video took place at CECOT, the famous mega prison that Bukele wants the world to see, and where they have placed gang members on display with tattooed faces, even though many of them were already in prison since before the regime of exception began.
“I had to write down the names of those who left in black bags”
The world has listened to the Venezuelans who spent four months there after being deported from the United States and exchanged with the Venezuelan government. But perhaps you have not heard any of the thousands of Salvadorans who have passed through other, less famous prisons: Mariona, Izalco, Quezaltepeque, Ilopango, the Ilobasco Penitentiary Farm, the Juvenile Detention Center El Espino. These prisons, where the politicians and YouTubers have not entered, are where most of the deaths have occurred. More than 400, according to the NGO Socorro Jurídico Humanitario.
INTERVIEWER ASKS FIDEL ZAVALA, SURVIVOR ONE: So, he was beaten to death?
ZAVALA: They beat him to death. They beat him to death. There is no other answer. “Welcome to hell,” he said. “Anyone who comes in here,” they said, doesn't come out, because we're in charge here.”
DOLORES ALMENDARES, SURVIVOR TWO: She lost her son. The girl was pregnant. And that day she was covered in blood and they just threw cold water on her.
ALBA, SURVIVOR THREE: The food had cockroaches, flies, hair in it.
MR. G, SURVIVOR FOUR: They put up a blackboard where they wrote down the names of those who died every day.
BACK TO DOLORES, SURVIVOR TWO: And while you're there, they send you to the dungeon for eight days, a dark place where you don't see the light of day. The girl who had a heart condition died on us because of the confinement. The guard Pablo came to tell us: “You old putas [whores],” he said. Those were his words. “Eat that shit!” he said. “The president already said that you don't know how much each egg costs him,” he said.
ON TO MARIO MARTÍNEZ, SURVIVOR FIVE: They hung there for two, three, four, five, six, up to eight hours. Those people were really shouting, they were really shouting. There were even old people saying, “Mommy, come help me, Mommy,” as if they were little children.
MR. R, SURVIVOR SIX: A boy arrived crying because he had lost his... his penis. It had... it had rotted and they had never… They treated him and at midnight I could hear him screaming. Screams of death, screams of pain.
MARÍA ELENA LOZANO, MOTHER OF TWO DETAINEES: When I found him at the hospital, he had no clothes. And I had brought him clothes every month.
INTERVIEWER: You brought him clothes every month?
LOZANO: Every month, no matter what, even if we were left with nothing to eat. We did it anyway. And now who is going to give me back my son? Who will give me back the other one that they don't want to give me? That's all I ask, that they give him back to me.
ÓSCAR R, SURVIVOR SEVEN: I looked at myself in the mirror. That was the first thing I did, as soon as I walked in: look in the mirror. I hadn't seen my face in seven months. I cried when I saw how I looked… It's very complicated… Really bad. Maybe I had never suffered with everything I went through… I'm still suffering because I still feel the consequences.
Enemies of the People
HOST: These survivors are not gang members with tattooed faces posing in front of the cells. Every time an influencer like Luisito Comunica went to do prison tourism at the CECOT, what we found in our reporting, far from Bukele’s so-called “Enemies of the People”, were men and women from “El Pueblo”. Common people.
JUAN CARLOS CORNEJO, SURVIVOR ONE: I have been disabled since 2006 when I had an accident at work.
NELSON CALLES, SURVIVOR TWO: My name is Nelson Alexander Calles Pérez. I am 34 years old. I have a degree in Legal Sciences.
FIDEL ZAVALA, SURVIVOR THREE: I voted for President Bukele in his first election [in 2019]. I voted for that Assembly in the first election [in 2021].
MR. G, SURVIVOR FOUR: I had never been in prison.
DOLORES ALMENDARES, SURVIVOR FIVE: They started searching the house, they woke up the kids who were asleep, who were minors. One had special needs…
ALBA, SURVIVOR SIX: I had spent a month in convalescence after undergoing surgery.
MARIO MARTÍNEZ, SURVIVOR SEVEN: I had spent 40 years working with the National Teaching Service as a math teacher. I had gone on social media and made a comment… let’s say, not well-received by the government.
HERNÁNDEZ, SURVIVOR EIGHT: They came to arrest me at my house. I had just come home from work to eat some pupusas.
ÓSCAR R, SURVIVOR NINE: I was the driver of a bus route. We were delivering products to stores.
ALEX, SURVIVOR TEN: That’s my work, giving grains to the cows, because my uncle has some cows. Those kinds of things: fetching water, firewood, jobs like that.
VÍCTOR BARAHONA, SURVIVOR ELEVEN: I'm a member of the press. I work for Tu Onda Club, a radio station. I also work for Channel 29 of Universal Cable for the entire northern region.
MR. U, SURVIVOR TWELVE: I always worked as a boatman with my brother and my dad, and my other brother, too.
Arrests as Quotas and Propaganda
HOST: More than 6,000 people were imprisoned in the first nine days of the regime of exception. In the second month of the regime, there were already 35,000 detainees. In the third, 42,000. A report by Human Rights Watch, based on interviews with police officers, confirmed that the arrests were made by quota, without evidence. Each arrest counted as one less gang member, for propaganda purposes. And so it remains.
Professor Alexander Eduvay Guzmán Molina, vice-principal of a school in Ilopango and a taxi entrepreneur, was captured on the first day of the regime. He survived five months in three prisons, including the welcome beating and the death of one of his workers.
EDUVAY GUZMÁN, SURVIVOR ONE: Everything started on Sunday, March 27, 2022. First day of the regime. It had been approved at midnight in a session of the Legislative Assembly, proposed by President Nayib Armando Bukele. And that Sunday, I went to the place where I had my business running. Since 2010, I saw the opportunity to offer taxi service. Despite being a professional, I didn't want to just wait around for my monthly salary, my monthly deposit; instead, I wanted to see how I would get ahead. My needs weighed on me. I had three young daughters to feed. That day, the police conducted an operation and they asked me for my documents, asked for the documents of the workers who were there: innocent victims who are still imprisoned, still deprived of their freedom.
I want to tell you that, even though I showed all the documentation, despite the fact that I spoke to the lawyer who was helping me with the paperwork for my vehicles, all of it legal… I spoke to the principal of the school and he supervisor, the head of the operation at that moment, and he told me that, regardless of who I talked with, the operation was carried out under regime of exception rules, no ifs or buts. Logically, we civilian workers were victims. We were subject to that law, involuntarily, against our will. We had to do it because our lives were at stake. Needless to say, everyone knows that. Only the police are unaware and say that anyone who paid extortion was a collaborator [of the gangs]. However, whoever paid extortion did so to save their own lives.
HOST: In the testimonies collected by El Faro, there are four patterns about how the arrests took place. The police officers lied to the arrested person, saying that there was an arrest warrant. Even though they or their relatives could see in the hands of the police officer a blank sheet of paper. They said they had to accompany them to the police station as routine procedure, that they would return home or, simply, they uttered a blunt few words with no further explanation, sounding something like this: “Regime [of exception] rules, period.” The police also lied in the arrest report saying that the arrested person was with a group of people on the street, when there are witnesses that they came to take people out of their homes. This marked the beginning of months or even years of horror. On May 23, 2022, Mr. H and his family saw that the police justified his arrest with a blank sheet of paper. He was imprisoned for nine months in two prisons, where he witnessed beatings and sexual assaults.
MR. H, SURVIVOR TWO: Supposedly, he said he had the arrest warrants. Then he asked for the dad's name, and he told him the name and said that he was also on the list. And the same for a brother-in-law of mine. He went on and on like that until they arrested all five of us, the five of us who were going to work. Then I approached the sergeant and told him that I wanted to know what was the reason why they were being arrested. The man came over, very angry, and told me that I was a big coward and he treated me badly and told me that because of those circumstances he was going to arrest me too. It’s worth saying that, on paper where he was supposedly carrying their names, there were no names. It was a blank piece of paper.
HOST: Attorney [Nelson] Alexander Calles fled the country upon learning that the police had made up a file on him as a gang member to justify an arrest warrant from January 2024.
NELSON CALLES, SURVIVOR THREE: I know it hasn't happened only to me. It has happened to many who, because they had a criminal record, were captured and charged under the state of exception, when there was no direct link to a gang. Well, they have done the same thing to me: they create a false profile, and with that profile they can justify an arrest, and it is always an illegal and improper arrest.
HOST: Thus began the six months of imprisonment suffered by Juan Carlos Cornejo Martínez, 40, who at the time worked as a rescuer of stray dogs. Based on lies, he was arrested on January 10, 2024. The police, in a tweet, publicly accused him of being an “18th Street homeboy,” a “known extortionist.” El Faro was able to verify that they never charged him for such crimes. The first comment under the police tweet is from a user who says, “Fantastic, let’s get rid of all these rats.”
JUAN CARLOS CORNEJO, SURVIVOR FOUR: He told me: “Hello, young man...” “How are you?” “Fine. How about you?” “Fine, can you…is this your car?” he asked me. “Yes, this is my car.” “Can I see your license and registration?” “Yes, of course.” I gave him my license. My card was in the car. I got out, gave it to him: “Here you go.” “Look,” I said, “sorry but… is there something wrong with the car?” “No, nothing's wrong. Everything's fine. Don't worry, nothing's wrong. Just come with us to the police station to confirm some information.” Fine, I said, they made it easy for me. “But look,” I told him again. “What's going on? Tell me what's going on.” “No, nothing's going on. We'll bring you back, we're just confirming the details and we'll bring you back.” They didn't put me in the back. Instead, they opened the door, since I'm disabled. They opened the door to the back seats and lifted me in.
HOST: With a very similar lie began the ordeal of Mr. Orellana, a 40-year-old businessman who had been the victim of extortion by two gangs, and who had part of his family had been granted asylum in the U.S. due to threats from those criminals who also murdered the security guard at his business. Despite this, the police captured him on December 4, 2023, and without any evidence against him, he spent 14 months in prison.
RELATIVE OF MR. ORELLANA, SURVIVOR FIVE: They asked us if the vehicle that was parked outside was ours, and my husband told them yes. My husband came out wearing a towel. We asked them what the problem was with the vehicle and they told us that there had been some kind of traffic accident and they had reported it, and that the characteristics matched our car. So my husband said to them: “Well, here are the papers, I don't know what you need.” “No, we need you to come with us.” And when I went to the police station where he told me they had him, they already had him handcuffed and had told him that he was under arrest for illicit association. They tricked him into leaving the house.
HOST: Bukele and his officials repeat that in El Salvador no journalist has been arrested, as a sign of their respect for democracy. That is false. On June 7, 2022, journalist Victor Barahona, aged 55, was captured without any other argument other than “the regime [of exception].” He spent 11 months jailed in two prisons.
VÍCTOR BARAHONA, SURVIVOR SIX: “Will you come with us?” “Why?” I asked him. “My boss says he's on his way, alright?” “Look, I'm a member of the press. I work for Tu Onda Club, a radio station. I work for Channel 29 of Universal Cable for the entire northern region.” He wasn't having it. When we went down the steps of my house, I remember him saying to me: “I'm going to handcuff you.” “Why are you going to handcuff me if I'm not a criminal?” “Just for legal reasons,” he said. He didn't say anything else to me. Then he handcuffed me and said, “You are under arrest under the regime of exception.”
HOST: Alex, a 20-year-old farmer who was arrested on Sunday, March 27, 2022, the first day of the regime, while searching for a signal to get internet on his phone in a rural municipality in San Vicente, spent a year and 25 days in prison.
ALEX, SURVIVOR SEVEN: He started checking my phone… “Check my phone,” I told him, “and if you find anything, go ahead and arrest me,” I said. “But you can’t take us away for no good reason.” The other guy also had a phone, who knows what he was doing on it, and from then on they didn't find anything on us. And he said to me, “Look, we haven't found anything on you, but we'll take you with us anyway,” he told me. “And why is that?” I asked him. “Don't ask us questions, we're not going to give you an explanation, you're coming with us, and that’s that,” he told me.
HOST: The day laborer Hernández, 17, received death threats when he was captured in July 2022 and imprisoned for almost two years.
HERNÁNDEZ, SURVIVOR EIGHT: All of us in the house went outside, the women… That’s when the soldier insulted me and told me to take out my ID card and then they just told me that they were going to take me in for questioning to the police station. They pushed and threatened me, telling me that I should thank God because they had captured me in my house, because if they had captured me in (...) or near (...), they wouldn't have captured me, but they would have killed me right then and there.
HOST: Mr. G, a 45-year-old bricklayer, was captured in April 2022 at his home in front of his wife. He was released 11 months later. When he read the documents relating to his arrest. He found out that the police claimed to have arrested him along with a group of gang members. The authorities presented him on social media surrounded by tattooed gang members. El Faro had access to these official documents and to several testimonies from neighbors who agree with Mr. G.
MR. G, SURVIVOR NINE: I was cleaning my house and suddenly, they tricked me, they called me outside and asked me for my ID. They kept me there. My wife came outside, too. I just heard the police… a soldier, say to the other “He doesn't have anything.” “What do we do?” “Doesn’t matter,” he said, “we’ll take him anyway.” They didn't give me the document, I don't know what they did to it, and they wouldn't let me go. I was scared. They had nothing on me. Nothing. Only later did I realize that their report claimed they had found me with a group of boys [from a gang] and that they had taken me away, that that was why they had accused me of illicit gatherings, which is false.
HOST: For each of them: the farmer, the dog rescuer, the bricklayer, the young day laborer, the businessman, that was the start of an ordeal that Professor Eduvay described so briefly and directly:
EDUVAY GUZMÁN, SURVIVOR TEN: That's where it all started. They took us, piled up, handcuffed, hands behind our backs and packed together. From here, from Ilopango, to Izalco. That trip was tedious. I peed in my boxers. I remember how my legs, my arms, my whole body couldn’t bear it. We all felt the same. Some cried, others screamed: “Aaayyy, I can't take it.”
Mass Trials Held Under Total Secrecy
HOST: Suffering and torment under the regime. The survivors interviewed by El Faro are a minimal but eloquent sample of what happens in secret inside Salvadoran prisons. All trials are held under total secrecy by court order. The mass trial of Salvadorans is taking place in the dark. The Salvadoran dictatorship claimed that, between March 2022 and May 2025, it arrested 86,400 people. In November 2024, Bukele claimed 8,000 had been released. Both figures are impossible to verify independently. As of August 17, 2025, the NGO Socorro Jurídico Humanitario reported 435 deaths in prisons. The director of that organization, like dozens of human rights defenders, is now in exile due to persecution by the regime.
The scenes described by the survivors are brutal. They depict a place where the level of cruelty depended on the mood of the guards and where, when people came out alive, as Andrés said, their bodies looked like they had been expelled from a concentration camp. The evidence of barbarism collected by this newspaper is sufficient to initiate a trial against the State. 17 of the survivors said they had suffered physical torture. One said he had witnessed sexual abuse.
MR. G, SURVIVOR ONE: I heard a guard say: “Welcome to hell. Those who enter here do not leave because we are in charge here.”
MR. M, SURVIVOR TWO: Because then the guards arrive to throw gas and there they threw it or even threw it into the cells above. But as it seeped down into all the cells below, everywhere was filled with it.
FLOR, SURVIVOR THREE: Sometimes the notorious Jefe Shanghai would come to mistreat us, to tell us that we looked like the prostitutes on such-and-such avenue.
DOLORES ALMENDARES; SURVIVOR FOUR: A pregnant girl was hung by Ms. Gata, one of the guards there. She lost her child.
ALBA, SURVIVOR FIVE: The girl was pregnant and that day everything was covered in bloodand they just threw cold water on her. They kept her hanging there. Day and night. So, they handcuffed her, and they hung her from cyclone cloth. And you stay there like that, hanging from the wrists. Like that, without eating. They grab your right hand, your left hand, and they put you in the cyclone fabric, that fabric they have. They are pretty tall there and they even have wire… I don't know what they call it… barbed wire, razor. That's what it seems to be called. Ah, well, they have that there. And they have everything fenced in like that. So they hang people there, by the right hand and the left hand. That’s how they hang you, from your hands, like when they slaughter a pig. The only thing is that your head stays up and your feet are down. The only difference. 24 hours. There were some who shouted “I can't take it anymore.” And the guards would say, “24 hours, 24 hours.”
MARIO MARTÍNEZ, SURVIVOR SIX: They handcuffed them like this, with their hands behind their backs. They put bricks on them in order for them to stand up. And then, on some kind of iron or railing. That's where the handcuffs were. Then they would remove the brick, leave them there, suspended in the air. They were on their tip-toes. They hung there for two, three, four, five, six, up to eight hours. Those people were really shouting, they were really shouting. There were even old people saying, “Mommy, come help me, Mommy,” as if they were little children. “Mommy, Mommy,” they screamed and cried, like sweet little children. I really felt pity and at that moment it was unbelievable to me, right? I felt, perhaps, I said, “That's how the Nazis were, right?”
Women and Babies
HOST: Of the three women who survived the regime who were interviewed by El Faro, only one claims to have been a victim of torture, when she was subjected to tear gassings in her cell. But they describe other types of torment that go beyond beatings. And he said, “No, for us you’re all the same.” So they took me to that place. I remember them telling me that they had to take off all my clothes. They were police officers, men. There were about ten police officers there because they told me to take off my clothes, that they would search me to see if I had any tattoos. So I told them that I couldn't undress in front of everyone, that for me it had to be a woman who would have to check me to see if I had any tattoos, not in front of everyone. They told me that I had to do it, and yes, I had to do it. So I had to undress in front of all the men who were there so they could see if I had tattoos or not.
INTERVIEWER ASKS FLOR: We're talking about babies, almost.
FLOR REPLIES: Babies.
INTERVIEWER: All of them.
FLOR: Yes, yes.
INTERVIEWER: Were there any older children, slightly older?
FLOR: No, they were all babies. They were all babies, and supposedly they isolated those first, because they isolated a group and supposedly didn't give them medicine, they just isolated them for the sake of isolating them. What the mothers did was, from the combination creams that were passed around, add antibiotics, things like that, so that the little bumps would go away.
INTERVIEWER: They improvised medicine.
FLOR: Yes, or they bathed them with bleach and Rinso [multipurpose soap] because there was no other way, they didn't give medicine there. That's what happened to the poor children and how they got rid of the rashes. Later, in the other group, I went with my child because they also told me that he had scabies.
HOST: A Cristosal report from 2024 reported that two babies died after being in prison with their mothers and due to the suffering they experienced, and that two other women had abortions as a result of the conditions of confinement.
A List of Torturers
HOST: Several of the survivors spoke of a state agent who identified himself as Montaña and even used to walk around without covering his face. Cristosal identified him in their 2023 report. El Faro managed to identify Montaña. He is the custodian William Ernesto Magaña Rodríguez. We contacted him by phone and he refused to give an explanation. This is how some of his victims describe Montaña as well as other guards, whom they remember by pseudonyms: Jefe Shanghai, Sagitario and a female guard named Sirena.
MR. U, SURVIVOR ONE: The man they call Montaña is a big man. Big. He's a tall man, and I’m telling you that every blow he dealt was a death blow in the waiting. That's why so many people died. He told the boys, because we were crouching down, “It smells like rats here. And I like killing rats.”
VÍCTOR BARAHONA, SURVIVOR TWO: All the guards at Mariona are afraid of that Montaña guy. He's always been a bully, except he was a big guy, like a bodybuilder. That's how big the man was.
ÓSCAR R, SURVIVOR THREE: In fact, there was a guard there who was really mean… one they called Montaña. He was well known because he is easy to identify: tall, big, and intimidating, just with his gaze or with what he says to you.
MR. H, SURVIVOR FOUR: Montaña is a really furious guard. But he isn't assigned to any sector, he just walks different from the rest, in a black sweater, black pants, hands in his pockets, with the big gas cylinders. No club, just gas cylinders, moving from one sector to another.
ALEX, SURVIVOR FIVE: In Mariona, yes, there were several who… This one, they call him Montaña, and another guard, I only remember those two. They called him Camilo, something like that.
FIDEL ZAVALA, SURVIVOR SIX: When I say that I am a witness to people on the ground being beaten with bare fists in Mariona, I saw how Montaña kicked a man in the chest and he shattered against the entrance gate of the compound. We were still inside Mariona, inside...
INTERVIEWER: Did they do that to you as a farewell, too?
ZAVALA: As a farewell.
INTERVIEWER IMITATES A GUARD: “Goodbye, sir.”
ZAVALA: Right. “See you later.”
INTERVIEWER: Was that done by Mariona guards? I had heard about the guards of Santa Ana.
ZAVALA: No, [they were] Mariona guards.
INTERVIEWER: And those people rounded you up, beat you, and gassed you without explanation?
ZAVALA: Without explanation.
INTERVIEWER: “Farewell, gentlemen.”
ZAVALA: “This is goodbye, take care, thank you very much for being here. This is your ticket out of here.”
INTERVIEWER: And Montaña was there for that procedure, too?
ZAVALA: Montaña was in all of that. Sagitario was there, there were a lot of them at that point. But to be honest, the only ones who I remember very well are Montaña and Sagitario.
Murders Perpetrated by Guards
HOST: 17 survivors say they were subjected to extreme hunger, and the same number say that they were denied medication and medical care; 14 had food packages stolen from them that were sent by their families; 20 had no communication with their defense attorneys under a scheme of absolute violation of due process; 11 were mixed in cells with gang members; 10, including two who died in prison, had been ordered released by a court, but the Bureau of Prisons ignored them in open violation of the law. 16 admit to having psychological consequences. And the most atrocious thing: 13 of the survivors interviewed by this media outlet described how they witnessed murders perpetrated by guards. 13 witnesses. 13 murders.
The professor Eduvay arrived at Izalco prison, where he was greeted by a corridor of guards who beat every new prisoner who entered. Behind him came one of his taxi driver employees. His name was Marco Tulio, and he was known as Teco. Teco threw himself on top of Eduvay’s body to cover him and was beaten with clubs. They agonized. They bled in the cell. Professor Eduvay was released a few weeks later. Teco died.
EDUVAY GUZMÁN: [Sound of blows] Bludgeonings. Yes… I had to pass between the two of you [interviewers] there. All of us, all of us running and running in line, because we were grabbing us and beating those they grabbed. Most of us… we all got it, of course, but some more than others. Others less so. But likewise, I was unfortunate enough to take a kick on my right leg. They bruised my thigh, I knelt down and fell doubled over and they started beating me. And I had faith that they couldn't beat me because I didn't have any tattoos alluding to anything. I don't have any marks, no artistic tattoos, nothing.
And then when I fell, they started beating me. “Get up, you son of a bitch, you dog, asshole!” and all that. A series of insults… serious, serious, serious, serious, horrible. And they started hitting me, hitting me, hitting me. And the one behind me was one of my workers, Marco Tulio. He had only been working with me for two months. And he got in too. And he used his body to cover me. They beat him, beat him, beat him. We were just taking it, until they said, “Alright, enough, calm down, leave them alone.” We were dead men walking. When we got to the place where we had to enter, the cell, I only remember that we saw lights, everything as if we were in a desert where we had visions. Everything blurry. Vomit. Marco Tulio said to me: “Professor, how could I let only you get hurt? Me, too.” “You shouldn't have gotten involved,” I told him.
We were in agony for four days with terrible fevers and terrible chills. Our bodies were shaking, and there were some boys who, from the little dirty water that was at the bottom of an old sink in the cell, as best they could with their hands, they rubbed those of us who were delirious from fever and put water on our foreheads and bodies. Marco Tulio was about 38 years old, at most 40. He was no older than 40. At that time, I was 45 years old. Marco Tulio began to bleed from his anus. He began leaving blood clumps in his boxers. He began to stain them. But at the end they told me that after me, they took him out, too. They took him to Quezaltepeque. I couldn't see him anymore, or have the opportunity to be with him. And indeed, they say Marco Tulio came out of that prison dead. But the strange thing is that he had been severely beaten on his back, on his chest. There are photos of him where he is all bruised, with large bruises.
Returned to Family in a Body Bag
HOST: When on March 30, 2022, the police captured Walter Vladimir Sandoval Peñate, 37 years old, a medical examiner reported that he had no tattoos and that he was “healthy, conscious, and calm.” On April 3, 2022, just 72 hours after his capture, he was returned to his family in a body bag. A corpse with bruises on his feet, arms, shoulders, with his wrists almost cut off.
RELATIVE OF WALTER SANDOVAL: We took them to the medical examiner. We were going to prepare him there. I didn't let the funeral home people touch him. We brought him here in the bag just as he was, and here in the house we came to take pictures of all the bruises he had. On his shins he had different bruises from kicks. On his hands, on his wrists, where the handcuffs had been tightened and had almost cut the veins here in front, on the hands, the wrists. He had injuries all over: on his arms, shoulders. It was really torture. His shins were very bruised, all over, supposedly from kicks. You can't say anything [bad] about him. With all those blows he had, I suppose it was from kicks.
HOST: On October 31, 2022, a man was captured in his shack made of sheet metal: Juan Saúl, who was 30 years old, with broad shoulders from working in the fields. Without any explanation, they put him in a police pickup truck. The next day, the dictatorship's news program said that 72 18th Street gang members had been captured, to reassure the population. Juan Saúl was one of them. On October 1, 2024, after two years in prison, after it was proven that he was not a gang member, Juan Saúl was returned to his family. His body did not look like Juan Saúl. That was not the man they took away, but a helpless bundle.
“What you are going to see is not what he was,” warned Juan Saúl's mother, his cousin, who was the first to see him outside the prison. The stories of hunger that the survivors told us explain in part what happened to those bodies that came out looking like corpses. Juan Saúl, for example, died 13 days after his release. He had been diagnosed with cancer seven months before leaving his imprisonment without trial and for crimes he never committed. The medical examiner who signed his death certificate said he died of pulmonary edema, as described in 90 percent of autopsies of prisoners reported by that institution of the dictatorship, according to Socorro Jurídico Humanitario.
These are not just testimonies of past experiences. The prisons are still full of people arrested under the regime of exception without any evidence of having committed any crime. Mass trials of up to 900 people have been approved by the ruling party-controlled Legislative Assembly and are about to begin. Hundreds of Salvadorans could be convicted without evidence, without access to defense and by judges imposed by the government. The Salvadoran dictatorship has not tried any prison employee or official for these acts.
“It has ruined my life; I still can’t recover”
HOST: The effects on the lives of those who survived have not been studied in depth. Only questions remain: What are their lives like after the horror? How do they survive? And above all, why did they agree, after suffering such barbarity, to tell the story of what they went through?
EDUVAY GUZMÁN, SURVIVOR ONE: I knelt down at the gate. I prayed to my God. I thanked Him because I could walk on the street. What I most asked Him for, what I asked my God for most, was to be able to freely walk the street. I went in weighing 220 pounds and came out at 125 pounds. I was a corpse. The damage is real. Physically, psychologically, emotionally, not to mention financially, materially… it has ruined my life. I still can't get up, I can't recover.
FLOR, SURVIVOR TWO: I'm talking about it because I've been through it. And maybe this will help, help the other girls to get out, or I don't know, help with the babies and with the men. Because they are suffering, there are many innocent people in there.
HOST: Walter Sandoval sought justice from the Police Inspectorate but instead of help, he received intimidation. In 2024, the Inter-American Commission documented how Bukele's dictatorship recaptured those who had already been released from the regime's prisons. The victims and their families live in constant fear. Denouncing the security forces can cost you your freedom or your life. Faced with this scenario, many have made a desperate decision to flee the country before ending up in prison again.
RELATIVE OF WALTER SANDOVAL: Once we were visited by the Police Inspectorate and I also went to report the case there at the Police Inspectorate. And they asked me if I was against the regime of exception. I told them that I was not against the regime of exception, nor did they have anything against the government or against the police, but that we were simply asking for justice and for these bad elements to be punished who tarnish the good image of the [police] corporation. That’s all I said. Because those guys who were out there taking lives for fun, they had already been arrested, but the problem is that maybe they are confused and are arresting people who shouldn't be arrested, just because maybe someone didn't like them or pointed the finger at them, right? What I would say to them is that it's not necessary for honest, hard-working people to have to pay the price to maintain peace among the people. Well, right now there aren't many cases of people who have been arrested without having belonged to anything. I don't think so, no, no, no. It wasn't necessary to hurt so many people.
JUAN CARLOS CORNEJO, SURVIVOR THREE: The truth of the matter is, I tell anyone, that whoever is responsible must pay because we, they, and I were affected by the gangs. They wanted to kill my brother. He lived here in the CAM. The gang members from here wanted to kill him. There are a lot of innocent people. And people who have been in gangs, have been collaborators, or simply have something to do with them, are walking around very happily in the street. But since he needed to fulfill a promise or meet a number… When all this began, when the regime of exception came into effect, many gang members left the country, are in other countries, but he needed to meet that number of gang members he said he was going to capture. He gave a number. He knows how to manipulate people, and unfortunately removing that blindfold from people’s eyes is too difficult.
RELATIVE OF MR. ORELLANA: We began to see how the police harassed us, right? So just last year, around July, something like that, we went to the embassy. We had never felt that need to leave and we went to apply for a visa as a family.
NELSON CALLES, SURVIVOR FOUR: They left the country out of fear: out of fear of the Salvadoran state. And I am clear and direct in saying this: out of fear of the Salvadoran state, out of fear of the National Civil Police. [I say this] so that whoever hears this story realizes that we who are affected are people, not machines, not animals. We are people.
“I say it was all because we are poor”
HOST: The possibility of getting out of prison is becoming increasingly remote. In August 2025, the Legislative Assembly controlled by Bukele reformed the Organized Crime Law to allow those detained under the regime, even those who are ultimately found innocent, remain in prison for up to seven years before learning their verdict. The regime shapes Salvadoran legislation little by little.
MR. H, SURVIVOR ONE: And I feel that as Salvadorans, the truth is that we are a thick-headed people, because we never see things clearly until we live them. Because in our case, we were happy that they were supposed to clean up [the security situation], they were going to clean up. But we never imagined that we were going to be part of that cleanup. For me, it's something that I would like to forget and not remember, but at the same time I can't, because I know what it's like to live in that place.
MR. G, SURVIVOR TWO: To people like that, the only thing I say is that, because it has never happened to a family member of theirs, I say let them go through that moment that my family went through here, they should take a family member or two of theirs, of those who are saying that, and there I want to see them say the same thing. They won’t say that those who are in prison are all gang members, because that's a lie.
MARÍA ELENA LOZANO: My son had to die without owing justice anything. And now the other one is in the same situation. And we are here with no one to… because we have no relatives to support us, we're alone in this. It hurts me, and I'm left with the thought that… we'll never know what happened to my son. What did they do to him? Well, I say it was all because we are poor, because imagine what crime could he possibly have committed? What crime could apply to all of those taken from us? What more do you want from us? Maybe they’ll start going from house to house to kill us, because that's what you expect. Because you get upset... What time did we go to sleep last night? Almost midnight, because we heard the dogs whining. And how will this man pay for my son's life? Tell me, how? With what he has done.
INTERVIEWER: When you say “the man,” do you mean the President?
LOZANO: Yes, because he's the one in charge and everything. I don't think he doesn't know what those he commands are doing. When you're alone, and you try to see your family member, they give you such a hard time.
VÍCTOR BARAHONA, SURVIVOR THREE: Don't think that I've given you this interview like a press conference… I gave it risking everything in this country. Because you have no idea what can happen to you for being a journalist, a union leader, or a social activist, or because you're a directivo, because you make the people who govern this country uncomfortable.
MR. H, SURVIVOR FOUR: But they don't know if we still owe what we have, right? Instead of doing us good, they did us harm. We were left with nothing, starting from scratch.
ÓSCAR R, SURVIVOR FIVE: You're left in a deplorable state of physical health. I don't have an explanation for that. It's a feeling that you have to experience firsthand to feel what it is, what you feel at that moment. I'm even now without work. I mean, I have two bruises that left me with an X-ray that I haven't had done because I'm too scared from the blows that they gave me on my back.
INTERVIEWER: Are you in pain?
ÓSCAR R: Yes, yes, I feel it. I can't sleep normally because it hurts. I have to sleep on my side And I have no strength to push or carry things.
“Let’s see if there is rule of law in El Salvador”
HOST: Dismantling the gangs through mass arrests under the regime of exception brought Bukele applause from the most conservative movements in the world and widespread acceptance from Salvadorans. More than 60 percent of Salvadorans continue to support the regime of exception. According to a survey by the Central American University in June of this year, 57.9 percent said that they would be somewhat or very likely to suffer negative consequences for expressing criticism of the president or the government.
MR. J, SURVIVOR ONE: The only thing I can say to these people who believe that the regime has been a good strategy to change all the, let's say, evil of the gangs… Well, I feel that it's not right, and it was not an effective way to change the country. Why? Because violence brings more violence and I feel that they haven't done it the right way, because there are many innocent people and this is just a political thing, nothing more. The kind of person the president is will come to light. But the president is not the person like people think. Rather, he is hiding something. He made a pact with gangs. So why doesn't he say where the biggest gang members are? Where are they? Why are you hiding them? Why didn't you hand them over to the United States? But this wasn't a war. It is nothing more than a strategy for him. I don't know what strategy he had or has. Maybe to win votes. I don't know. Why didn't they investigate instead of jailing me six months just because of some political squabbling he's involved in? I feel like it's a little unfair.
MR. L, SURVIVOR TWO: We had to pay for something we didn't owe. I thank God for those people who didn't have a family member taken away. They are the ones who celebrate and applaud. So, when I see the situation, I say, what has changed here? Nothing has changed. People who are happy maybe say those things, but here in my neighborhood, where I've always lived, they've never seen me extorting or working people, much less warning them that the police were coming. Everyone, everyone is susceptible, Everyone who has not been investigated is likely to end up in jail when there is a regime [of exception]. To those people I say that as long as this government is in power and there is a regime, it can happen to any of them.
FIDEL ZAVALA, SURVIVOR THREE: But that is why I’m making this public accusation, and that is why part of what I said is: “Let's see if it's true that there is legal certainty in El Salvador."
INTERVIEWER: What do you think? You’ve sued the Minister of Public Security.
ZAVALA: This is a really important point, and this is what I have in mind, and that's why I said, “Let's see if it's true that there is rule of law in El Salvador,” because I’m not a gang member, I don't have any tattoos. How are they going to link me to gangs? Are you going to bring in one of those guards to tell me that I'm a gang member? What are you going to do? I should win. If the law is fair, as it should be, if the rule of law exists in El Salvador, I should win.
INTERVIEWER: Do you think you're going to win?
ZAVALA: I think I'm going to win.
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Editor’s Note: After spending months in prison, Zavala became a prominent face in protests in El Salvador, as well as a spokesperson for the Unit for the Defense of Community and Human Rights in El Salvador (UNIDEHC), an organization offering legal advice to families fighting off eviction from the La Floresta Estate. In late February 2025, with his lawsuit for torture against Minister of Public Security Gustavo Villatoro still active, Zavala was re-arrested and charged with illicit association, illegal commercialization of land plots, and, as the arresting officer told him, “pretending you’re a lawyer.”
Zavala has remained in prison —now for the second time— ever since.