The Venezuela, who were detained in March immigration intervention by US President Donald Trump, spoke of the “horror” that Salvadoran lasted in their prison. They argued that witnesses of abuse, beating, violence, corrupt food and legal limbo.
“Welcome to hell!”
In an interview with the press agency AFP 37 -year -old Maikel Oliver said that there was “beating 24 hours a day” and sadistic guards who warned, “You will be driving here, you will be in prison for 300 years.”
“I thought I would never return to Venezuela,” he said.
Up to 252 Venezuelans were detained in the March immigration intervention of US President Donald Trump. They were accused without evidence of gang activity and deported to Salvador’s notorious Center for Terrorism known as Cecot.
“Welcome to hell! … You’ll die here!” Strongly armed guards mocked them on arrival at the maximum security facility east of the capital San Salvador.
The Venezuelans were held separately from the local prison population in “Pavilion 8” – a building with 32 cells, each measuring about 100 square meters (1,076 square feet).
Each cell-zhruba size of an average apartment with two bedrooms-was designed to hold 80 prisoners.
Men shaved their heads and got prison clothing: T -shirt, shorts, socks and white plastic seals, AFP press agency reported.
Mervin Yamarte, who left Venezuela with his younger brother and hoped for a better life, said AFP said that his neck remained a little tuft of hair, which the guards pulled.
Prisoner life: sexual abuse, rubber bullets, riots
For four months, the prisoners had no access to the Internet, telephone calls, visits to close or even lawyers.
Men never saw sunlight and got one shower a day at 4:00. If they took a shower from the turns, they were beaten.
At least one said he was sexually abused, AFP reported. Men also claimed to sleep mostly on metal cribs, without mattresses that would provide comfort.
There were a few small, poorly ventilated cells where prisoners were locked for 24 hours for offenses-cunning or presented.
“There were detainees who couldn’t last two hours and were unconscious,” Yamarte said.
Andy Perozo, 30 years old, said AFP about the guards who shot rubber bullets and tear the gas into the cells.
A week after one of the two riots that were brutally suppressed, “they shot me every morning. It was hell for me. Every time I went to the doctor, they beat me,” Perozo said.
Edwuar Hernandez, 23, also said that he was defeated at the infirmary. “Kick you kick you … kicks everywhere,” he said. “Look at the brands; I have grades, I’m marked.”
The arrest was killed by the time to play with dice games made from the pieces of tortilla dough. They counted around passing days with notches on soap color.
‘From hell’
It is estimated that eight million Venezuelans fled his homeland from the political and economic chaos to try to find a job in the United States that would allow them to send money home.
Yamarte left in September 2023 and made weeks on foot through Darien Gap, which separates Colombia from Panama.
It is an inseparable terrain that has required the lives of countless migrants who have to dwell the predatory criminal gangs and wild animals.
Yamarte was arrested in Dallas in March and deported three days later, without a court hearing.
All 252 detainees were at the same time and unexpectedly exempt on July 18 during the exchange of a prisoner between Caracas and Washington.
“The suffering is over,” Mervin Yamarte, 29, said, enjoying the desire for a moment of catharsis.
After entering the port of the Caribbean port of Maracaib, Yamarte was the first thing Yamarte was hugging his mother and a six -year -old daughter burned bag white prison shorts he wore in four months.
“Suffering is over now,” Mervin replied. “We went out of hell,” said another former detail.
“Arrested simply for sports tattoos”
Many men believe that they were simply arrested in the United States for sports tattoos incorrectly interpreted as evidence of connection with the dreaded gang Tren de Aragua.
Yamarte has the one that sounds: “Strong as Mom.”
“I’m clean. I can prove it to everyone,” he said indignantly, hurting that he was falsely accused of being a criminal. “We went … looking for a better future for our families; we didn’t go to steal or kill.”
Many of them are now considering legal proceedings.
(Tagstotranslate) Venezuelaans
