‘The cemetery of living men’

Trump deportees tell of abuse in secretive mega-jail

Arturo Suárez says he was beaten by guards as soon as he arrived at El Salvador’s notorious Cecot prison. When he regained consciousness – his glasses smashed – everything was blurred, he says, but he heard the greeting clearly.

“Welcome to hell. Welcome to the cemetery of living men. The only way you leave here is dead.”

Arturo says the person speaking was the jail’s director, Belarmino García.

Cecot – the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism – was designed for the mass incarceration of El Salvador’s most violent and dangerous gang members, a symbol of President Nayib Bukele’s hardline approach to the wave of murders and extortion that had terrorised the country.

Since it was opened in 2023, authorities have been secretive about life inside Latin America’s largest prison. And with few inmates ever let out, there has been little information available about what goes on behind its concrete walls and electrified fences.

But Arturo and 251 other Venezuelans have recently been released from Cecot, having been sent there in March in a deal between the US and El Salvador, as part of President Trump’s campaign of mass deportations of migrants.

After arriving at their family homes in Venezuela last month, amid celebrations and tears, eight of the released men told BBC News Mundo about their time behind bars.

In their testimonies, they describe regular beatings, sometimes with sticks while handcuffed. One says he was sexually abused by guards.

The men say they slept on metal bunks with no sheets or mattresses and had to eat with their bare hands. They also had no access to lawyers or the outside world, and no clocks or watches to tell the time of day.

Aged between 23 and 39, they had all been living in the US. Some had entered in accordance with US law, others had crossed the border illegally, before they were accused of being violent gang members and deported to El Salvador.

They all deny any gang involvement and criminal activity, and say they were never given an opportunity to challenge the accusations against them. Most are convinced they were singled out because of their various tattoos, which US authorities have claimed demonstrate potential links to Tren de Aragua, a powerful regional criminal group that originated in Venezuela.

The US says deportees were carefully vetted, but did not respond to questions about what evidence was used against them.

Bundled on to a plane with their ankles and wrists shackled, the men say they thought they were being flown from the US back to Venezuela. But when they landed, guards with covered faces dragged them off the aircraft, says Edwuar Hernández, and they realised they were in El Salvador.

When they arrived at Cecot, still in chains, they were forced to kneel before men who shaved their heads. They describe how they had to undress, then put on white shorts, a white sweater and white rubbery shoes.

Mervin Yamarte, who had been working in a tortilla factory in Texas until he was deported, says he was beaten while naked.

“They hit my butt with a stick, punched me in the ribs – they wouldn’t let me put on my clothes.”

The BBC repeatedly put the Venezuelans’ allegations to the Salvadoran government, but officials did not respond.

The prison and its cells

When they were first assigned to their cells, Ringo Rincón says a guard told them: “You know there are no lawyers here, there are no phone calls, there are no judges, there’s nothing. The only thing you have is what you’re wearing and what you have inside the cell.”

The Venezuelans say there were 10 to 19 of them in each cell and they were generally kept apart from Salvadoran inmates. But sometimes a group of Salvadoran prisoners would bring food and collect the rubbish, and because of their yellow uniforms, the Venezuelans called them “the minions”, like the characters from the animated Despicable Me films.

The lavatory could be seen by everyone and “the smell was horrible… it stank so much inside the cell”, says Wilken Flores.

“There was no ventilation, no airflow. The heat was suffocating,” recounts Arturo.

The men all say they weren’t allowed outside. “We felt the sun on our bodies only twice, both times when the Red Cross came,” says Arturo, referring to visits the humanitarian aid group carries out in prisons to check conditions.

The daily routine

There were no windows in the cells and guards refused to tell them the day or time, the Venezuelan migrants tell us.

The men estimate their day would start about 04:00 when the guards would shout: “Counting time!”

“That was our alarm,” says Andry, and the inmates would be counted before being allowed 10 minutes to wash.

In the four months he was detained, Arturo claims he was given toothpaste three times – when there were visits from the Red Cross or US politicians.

“We ended up brushing our teeth with soap.”

The inmates had to ask for permission to get water to drink and to go to the toilet, he adds, otherwise the guards “would hit us”.

Despite having no way of telling the time, the men estimate meals were served at 07:00, 12:00 and 17:00 and were a combination of rice, beans, pasta and tortillas, sometimes with sour cream or cookies. They all say they had no cutlery and had to eat with their hands.

The guards demanded total silence, says Ringo, and if prisoners disobeyed, they would be made to stand in the “frisk position” – leaning forward, their eyes and heads down – waiting to be checked by the guards. “They would leave us like that for two, three, four hours,” he says.

All the men acknowledge they could have requested a medical consultation if they felt unwell, but say they were not given any medicine during their time in Cecot, except for nine pills – six red and three white – every Monday. These were to prevent tuberculosis, they say they were told.

“Those pills made your urine red for about four days and gave it a strong smell,” explains Edwuar.

The Island

Some of the most brutal treatment is alleged to have happened in a place known as “The Island” – this is what they called each of the “three dark cells where they take you to torture you”, says Joén Suárez.

The BBC has created this illustration from testimony shared by the men.

• – BBC

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