El Salvador's government launched a prison emergency against jailed gang members after more than 20 people were killed on Friday.
President Nayib Bukele announced the crackdown after receiving intelligence suggesting the murders, which occurred outside of prisons, were ordered by imprisoned gang leaders, Al Jazeera reports.
Shocking images released on Twitter by the office of the president show hundreds of inmates crammed together on prison floors while their cells were searched, despite COVID-19 fears due to overcrowding. Some are seen wearing face masks but there is otherwise little protection against the possible spread of the virus.
Imprisoned gang members were ordered to "absolute confinement" together for 24 hours while police searched their cells as part of "emergency measures" due to the 22 recent homicides.
"The maximum emergency in all the penal centers where gang members are found seeks to determine the origin of the homicide orders perpetrated in the country. The criminal Izalco [prison] is one of the venues where @CentrosPenales and the @PNCSV carry out searches," the office of Bukele tweeted.
"The use of lethal force is authorised for self-defense or for the defense of the lives of Salvadorans."
Seven prisons with inmates from gangs are on "high alert" and all activities in these prisons are suspended indefinitely.
The country's General Director of Penal Centers Osiris Luna Meza says "not a single ray of sunlight" will enter any prison cells.
"More practical and harsh measures have been established. This is necessary to stop this wave of homicides that have happened these days," he wrote on Twitter.
El Salvador began a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown on March 22 and made imprisonment a punishment for breaking lockdown laws.
Human rights groups have criticised the rules, saying people must be brought before a judge or court to show there's a valid reason for their arrest, Al Jazeera reports.
The constitutional court has ruled to release some people who were detained illegally, but Bukele has defended the police's authority to detain people and send them to quarantine.
The country of 6.4 million people has had 323 cases of the virus and eight deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus tracker.
