El Faro’s Carlos Barrera Wins World Press Photo for Coverage of State of Exception in El Salvador
Carlos Barrera
Thursday, March 27, 2025
El Faro
The work Life and Death in a Country without Constitutional Rights, by El Faro photojournalist Carlos Barrera, has won the 2025 World Press Photo award in the Long-Term Projects category in the North and Central American region. He is the second El Faro journalist to win a World Press Photo, following Fred Ramos in 2014, and the third from El Salvador, including El Diario de Hoy’s Lissette Lemus in 2009. This year, Lemus was a member of the five-person jury for North and Central America.
The official announcement was made today, March 27, three years to the day since the state of exception came into force in El Salvador. Carlos Barrera’s coverage portrays, in 30 monochromatic photographs, Salvadorans’ journey under the state of exception following the most violent weekend on record in the 21st century in the country: Between March 25 and 27, 2022, the Mara Salvatrucha-13 murdered 87 people following the collapse of their pact with the government of Nayib Bukele. Some of these photographs were republished by National Public Radio (NPR) in the United States.
“The jury felt that this project powerfully captures the personal toll of state violence, offering an intimate view into the lives of individuals who have been unfairly arrested and brutalized,” wrote World Press Photo. “The photographer’s creative approach to protecting identities while maintaining visual impact heightens the sense of descending darkness and terror. The story resonates beyond its borders, reflecting the global implications of migration politics as many Salvadorans face the prospect of being deported back to the violence they once fled. The photographer’s work, undertaken at enormous personal risk, brings viewers closer to the human cost of authoritarianism.”
53,320 images by 3,778 authors from 141 countries were submitted to the 2025 World Press Photo contest. Artificial intelligence is prohibited and both its possible use and the facts recorded in each photo are verified. The annual Word Press Photo competition recognizes the best photojournalism produced over the past year.
The award-winning images portray an authoritarian El Salvador without rights: mass arrests, carried out with brute force by the military and the police; women crying because their partners have been detained, seeking answers outside a prison; the bodies of the dead registering unmistakable signs of torture inside the prisons; inhabitants of the most vulnerable corners of the country, having proven their innocence, show their wounds and traumas; and desperate mothers look for their children at night, under the rain.
Carlos Barrera’s photos illustrate this moment in El Salvador from a perspective focused on the victims. These photos take us back to the most perverse times in the country during the twelve years of armed conflict (1980-1992), which left its own trail of deaths, disappearances, and forced displacements that still go unpunished. This project records events officially denied by the Government of El Salvador, including human rights violations and restrictions on freedoms: “Journalism and human rights organizations have demonstrated arbitrary arrests, deaths with signs of torture, and the lack of fair judicial processes,” says Barrera.
For the last three years in El Salvador, most arrests have been made in the poorest and most marginalized neighborhoods. Places that once lived under the threat of gang violence are now guarded by police and soldiers who have the power to arrest people because they look suspicious, even for showing nervousness or having tattoos. The state of exception has also silenced critical voices and those who dissent from the government's official narrative.
This work will form part of the annual World Press Photo book and the worldwide exhibition that includes 80 cities in 30 countries. Below is Carlos Barrera's curation of 30 photographs.
Saturday, Mar. 26, 2022, was the most violent day of the 21st century in El Salvador, according to existing records. The next day, the Legislative Assembly approved a state of exception suspending significant constitutional rights of its citizens. Since then, the police and the army have captured more than 80,000 people. According to estimates by human rights organizations, at least 30,000 of the people are innocent. Since that date, there have been at least 300 deaths recorded in the country’s prisons.
A young man is taken to prison by the police during an operation on Feb. 1, 2024, in the Nuevo Israel community of San Salvador. A bit of marijuana was found on him for personal consumption and he was treated as a gang member, despite having no links to criminal groups and no record of previous arrests.
During the first days of the state of exception in 2022, arrests were made on a massive scale and those captured were taken as a group to small cells such as El Penalito, accused of illicit associations even if they had no relationship with each other.
On Dec. 3, 2022, Salvadoran security forces captured dozens of young people during a military siege in the Las Margaritas neighborhood of Soyapango. Las Margaritas is a stigmatized neighborhood because, for years, it was under the control of the MS-13 gang.
A man with tattoos that are not gang-related waits to be interrogated by soldiers on Dec. 3, 2022, during the military siege in Las Margaritas. According to human rights organizations, having tattoos was the reason why many were arrested during the country's state of exception.
On Sep. 27, 2022, a group of prisoners captured during the state of exception wait at the entrance to Ilopango Prison in San Salvador. That day was the last they would be able to see their families. In El Salvador's prisons, detainees have no communication with the outside world and cannot receive visits from their families.
A woman holds her baby and tries to talk to her husband, who was captured during the first days of the state of exception in 2022. Thousands of families have been separated due to the mass arrests during the three years of the regime.
People arrested in September 2022 during the state of exception, moments before entering Ilopango Prison. In most cases, people have been in prison for almost three years without due process. Trials were held in mass groups and thousands of cases were not individualized: people were accused of collective crimes.
Cecilia Ábrego holds a T-shirt with a photo of her children who were captured during the regime. Cecilia suffers from cancer and must raise money for her treatment and send packages to her detained children. In addition, after the arrests, she had to take care of her grandchildren.
On Aug. 16, 2022, Uziel de Jesús was released from the PNC holding cells in Usulután, El Salvador. His mother, Vilma Pineda, who had traveled every day since his capture, was waiting for him at the entrance. Uziel was captured on Espíritu Santo Island along with 21 neighbors under the state of exception.
A 16-year-old boy who was captured, along with seven friends, claimed they were beaten and tortured by members of the Salvadoran Navy in November 2022 in the community of Amando López in Bajo Lempa, Usulután.
Relatives of Juan Saúl, a 32-year-old worker, pray during a commemoration after his funeral. Juan died after suffering from ear cancer and not receiving proper treatment in prison. Juan Saúl had no criminal record, but the police captured him anyway.
An altar in honor of Juan Saúl. Juan died on Oct. 13, 2024, at the age of 32. He spent the last two years of his life in prison after being captured under the state of exception on Oct. 31, 2022. Juan had worked at the Ministry of Public Works.
María Elena cries by her son's coffin. On Oct. 5, 2022, her son, Marvin Díaz, was captured in a rural area of Usulután. In prison, he fell ill due to the unsanitary conditions. On June 6, 2024, the court granted him his freedom after photographs of Marvin, chained to a hospital bed, went viral on social media. Marvin died on July 28, 2024, after not receiving adequate treatment in time.
Rodrigo Vázquez, Jr. was one of more than 300 people who died in the custody of the Salvadoran government during the state of exception.
Relatives of Rodrigo Vázquez, Jr., who died in a Salvadoran prison during the state of exception, at his funeral on Mar. 13, 2023.
Alba is 28 years old and the mother of one child. In November 2022, she was living at home with her parents, whom she and her brother helped with household expenses. She had applied for a U.S. visa and had been selected to work at the beginning of 2023. Then she suffered what she describes as a kidnapping. On Nov. 11, 2022, agents of the National Civil Police arrived at her house and captured her in front of her mother and her son. There was no reason given, no evidence, no warrant. She was tortured in prison and saw other women die and others lose their pregnancies.
Andrés was born while his mother was detained in Izalco Prison in Sonsonate, where he spent the first five months of his life. Andrés left Izalco prison on May 29, 2023, with a back covered in scabies, caused by dampness and dirt.
Samuel was arrested despite his condition. For 13 months, he was treated cruelly: He was beaten by guards, subjected to humiliating punishments, his cellmates stole his food and medicine, and he was forced to live in abhorrent conditions. He claims to have seen several cellmates commit suicide by hanging. He is a man with mental health problems who was captured during the state of exception. In prison, he developed a skin condition.
José Duval Mata’s children play in his house in rural Usulután, in eastern El Salvador. José was arrested in April 2022 and remains in prison. After almost three years of the state of exception, thousands of children in El Salvador are growing up without their parents.
Andrés is a 28-year-old resident of a rural canton in the east of the country. Three months after obtaining his engineering degree, he was arrested under the state of exception. Andrés was detained for eight and a half months. He claims to have seen hundreds of cases of severe malnutrition, which remind him, he says, of images of the victims of German concentration camps during World War II.
A police agent during a demonstration of relatives of victims of the state of exception. The policeman loaded his weapon and took up his guard. Human rights organizations have accused the police of El Salvador of acting as judges and capturing thousands of innocent people.
Dozens of relatives of people captured during the state of exception protested in front of the Presidential Palace on Dec. 10, 2024, to ask the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, to allow them to see their relatives at Christmas. Thousands of prisoners have not seen their families for three Christmases.
Bryan López’s father wears a T-shirt with a photograph of his son during a protest against the state of exception in September 2022. Bryan’s relatives had declared him missing after not finding him in the prison system following his capture.
In December 2024, the mothers of hundreds of incarcerated Salvadorans marched for miles to protest against the government of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and to demand better prison conditions.
People line up to show their IDs to police at a checkpoint in Distrito Italia, San Salvador, during the first days of the state of exception in April 2022.
During the first months of the state of exception, hundreds of people built shelters and slept outside Mariona Prison in San Salvador to try to get information about their detained relatives.
On Apr. 27, 2022, Noelys González stood in a storm at the edge of the muddy road leading to Izalco Prison. From afar, she watched to see if her brother appeared. Her brother, a motorcyclist, was arrested on Apr. 7, 2022, in Juayúa, Sonsonate. Most, like Noelys, ended the day frustrated and suffocated by the heat and seasonal rain in Izalco, in western El Salvador.
Relatives arrived at the detention center known as El Penalito in San Salvador to look for their detained family members. During the first months of the state of exception, many of those captured were declared missing by their relatives; it was impossible to locate them in the Salvadoran prison system.
Dozens of people stood in the rain outside Izalco Prison, looking for information about their relatives who had been arrested in Sonsonate, in western El Salvador, in April 2022. Some who lived far away from the prison traveled for hours and slept on the street. Three years later, thousands of families still have no information on their incarcerated family members.
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