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How El Salvador's brutal crackdown on crime transformed the country... and prompted US to declare it safer than BritainEl Salvador was once one of the most dangerous countries in the world, but today its murder rate has dropped by 98 per cent in a decade, and the US now considers it safer to visit than Britain or France.In 2015, there were 6,656 murders in the small Central American country, which has a population of just 6.4 million. But in 2024, there were only 114 killings.The dramatic change came after President Nayib Bukele, who brands himself as the 'world's coolest dictator', launched an aggressive crackdown on crime. In 2022, he declared a state of emergency, which remains in place. It gave security forces the power to arrest people without a warrant. At one point, around 1,000 people a day were being detained on suspicion of gang involvement. A year later, El Salvador opened a new prison called the Terrorism Confinement Centre - Cecot - to hold the growing number of detainees. It was built in a remote area and is now one of the most extreme prisons in the world. Inmates are banned from all contact with the outside world, and up to 100 men share a single cell. They sleep on bare concrete slabs with no mattresses, and food is limited. There are no visitors, and prisoners are often transferred in chains, surrounded by armed guards.Inmates are confined to their cells and are only allowed out for exercise in the prison's corridors or video link hearings.