Mervin Yamarte left Venezuela with his younger brother, hoping for a better life.
But after a perilous jungle march, US detention, and long months in a Salvadoran jail surviving riots, beatings and fear, he has returned home a wounded and changed man.
On entering the sweltering Caribbean port of Maracaibo, the first thing Yamarte did after hugging his mother and six-year-old daughter was to burn the baggy white prison shorts he wore during four months of "hell."
"The suffering is over now," said the 29-year-old, enjoying a longed-for moment of catharsis.
Yamarte was one of 252 Venezuelans detained in US President Donald Trump's March immigration crackdown, accused without evidence of gang activity, and deported to El Salvador's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT.
According to four ex-detainees interviewed by AFP, the months were marked by abuse, violence, spoiled food and legal limbo.
"You are going to die here!" heavily armed guards taunted them on arrival to the maximum security facility east of the capital San Salvador. "Welcome to hell!"
The men had their heads shaved and were issued with prison clothes: a T-shirt, shorts, socks, and white plastic clogs.
Yamarte said a small tuft of hair was left at the nape of his neck, which the guards tugged at.
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 -- roughly the size of an average two-bedroom apartment -- was designed to hold 80 prisoners.
TIMES/AFP
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