[1/8] A prison agent guards gang members as they are transported to their cells, after 2000 gang members were transferred to the Terrorism Confinement Center, according to El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, in Tecoluca, El Salvador, in this handout distributed to Reuters on February 24, 2023.
Secretaria de Prensa de la Presidencia/Handout via REUTERSSAN SALVADOR, Feb 24 (Reuters) - El Salvador's government moved thousands of suspected gang members to a newly opened "mega prison" on Friday, the latest step in a controversial crackdown on crime that has caused the Central American nation's prison population to soar.
"This will be their new home, where they won't be able to do any more harm to the population," President Nayib Bukele wrote on Twitter.
Around 2,000 accused gang members were moved to the 40,000-person-capacity prison, considered to be the largest in the Americas, early Friday morning.
In a video posted by Bukele, prisoners stripped down to white shorts, with their heads shaved, are seen running through the new prison into cells.