“They told me he would come back” the wait that never ends in El Salvador

In the official narrative, security is presented as victory. In everyday life, absence becomes permanent. “They told me they would return him to me in 15 days… and it has already been three years,” says Anayladi Rebelo through tears, mother of José Armando, detained during the state of exception under El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele. Her voice —broken, insistent— does not ask for statistics, it asks for her son. In that distance between discourse and pain, the human cost of a policy that promises order is revealed, while leaving open questions about justice and dignity.