Bukele's crackdown pushes top Salvadoran journalists to flee
El Salvador’s top independent investigative news outlet moved its headquarters to Costa Rica in 2023. More of its journalists left the country this month.
May 18, 2025 at 5:00 a.m. EDT 13 minutes ago
From left, journalists Efren Lemus, 45, Carlos Barrera, 35, and Victor Peña, 40, after fleeing potential arrest warrants by the Salvadoran government of President Nayib Bukele. (Daniele Volpe/For The Washington Post)
By Samantha Schmidt
SAN SALVADOR — Their news site had just exposed details of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s alleged deals with the country’s gangs. Now the three journalists were faced with a choice they had long dreaded.
El Faro — Spanish for lighthouse — is the premier independent investigative news outlet in El Salvador. The staff had received word that Bukele’s increasingly authoritarian government might be preparing warrants to arrest seven of its journalists.
Four of the seven had already left El Salvador. Carlos Barrera, Efren Lemus and Victor Peña remained. To stay longer would mean risking arrest. To flee would mean risking detention at the border.
One morning this month, they tried the latter. The trio drove to the border with Guatemala, showed their documents to immigration authorities and were allowed to cross.
“We don’t know where we stand yet,” Lemus, 45, told The Washington Post hours later. They weren’t sure when or even whether they’d be able to return safely to report from their country.
More:
https://archive.is/20250518091315/https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/05/18/bukele-authoritarian-el-faro-salvador/#selection-449.0-449.185
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