Los 252 Venezuelan immigrants sent by the Donald Trump Administration to President Nayib Bukele’s Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) in El Salvador report having suffered tortureThe organization warned this Wednesday Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The organization denounced in a report, in collaboration with the NGO Cristosal, based in Guatemala, that the Venezuelan migrants sent to the center were subjected to torture, rape and were deprived of access to food and water, according to the testimonies of a hundred family members and nearly fifty former prisoners.
“What we discovered is that these Venezuelans suffered systematic torture during the almost four months they were in the center. Day after day they were beaten by the guards, they were beaten for speaking loudly, they were beaten for everything, which led us to the conclusion that these were not isolated cases, but rather something systematic,” said Juanita Goebertus, director of the Americas division of HRW at the presentation of the report in Washington.They came to hell‘.
The migrants were sent to Cecot between March and April, after the Trump Administration accused them of terrorism, and on July 18 they were repatriated to Venezuela as part of an agreement prisoner exchange between the United States, Venezuela and El Salvador.
The document is, they claim, the most complete publication to date of the mistreatment to which these people were subjected while they were detained in El Salvador.
HRW documented “at least three cases of sexual violence by guards against Venezuelan migrants”, as well as “very serious verbal and psychological abuse”.
The testimonies explained that They did not have adequate access to clean water, food or medical care.: “The water they used for drinking and cooking was yellow and sometimes hot,” explained the director.
Furthermore, four of those interviewed claimed to have had suicidal thoughts and one of them tried to take his own life in the center.
“There are no terrorists”
The document accuses the United States of being “complicit” in this pattern of violence against Venezuelans and reveals, contrary to what the White House argues, that these people were not terrorists or criminals.
“There are no terrorists in this group of men. There are men fleeing gang violence and dictatorship in Venezuela, who were later expelled and suspended from their rights in El Salvador inside a terrorist prison,” said Noah Bullock, executive director of Cristosal.
As they explained, one of the main conclusions of the report reveals that The forced expulsion to which the migrants were subjected constitutes “a forced disappearance, “which is an international crime in which both the United States and El Salvador are complicit.”
“The current Department of Justice is not going to be in charge of carrying out a fair and transparent investigation, but there will come a time when those responsible for this very serious act of US complicity in systematic torture will have to be investigated and held accountable,” Goebertus said.
“At some point there will have to be an investigation and we and other organizations are gathering evidence for when that time comes,” he added.
HRW urged the rest of the countries to raise their voices and denounce the acts that are being committed in Cecot with the approval of the United States.
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