Prisoners starving to death in the prison that was part of Pablo Escobar’s opulent estate

The prison in Puerto Triunfo, Antioquia, is called El Pesebre. It is surrounded by hippos, tigers, elephants, jaguars, zebras, lions and 1,400 other animals that live in Hacienda Nápoles, the most iconic and expensive property that Pablo Escobar left in Colombia. Just 500 meters from the entrance, along a dark, unpaved road, you reach the prison where inmates say they are dying of hunger. There have been 15 deaths in the last 18 months from diseases associated with malnutrition, according to the Penitentiary and Prison Institute (INPEC).

“They call it the prison of death,” says Jorge Carmona, a prison supervisor who has taken on the role of spokesperson for the families of the people deprived of their liberty held there. “It is the prison of death because they know that if their relative ends up there, it is likely that they will not come out alive,” he tells this newspaper by telephone. Last October, at its most critical moment, El Pesebre had 460 men (out of 1,612 in total) who were malnourished or extremely thin and at high risk of developing diseases because of it. This was 26% of them, one in four. Luz Dary Estupiñán, deputy director of Health at INPEC, explains in an interview with this newspaper that last year they identified 66 cases of tuberculosis and 14 of chickenpox, diseases that spread easily among incarcerated populations. She says that they have mitigated the outbreaks, and that there are still eight people with tuberculosis and two with chickenpox.

Most institutions attribute the prisoners’ malnutrition to the consumption of psychoactive substances in the prison. An inmate who spoke to EL PAÍS on condition of anonymity says that in El Pesebre you can get everything from a joint (cigarette) of marijuana to tusi and fentanyl, a synthetic drug that has left 30 people dead in a decade in Colombia. “Many people go so far as to exchange food for drugs, because they prefer to get high so as not to live in hunger,” he writes. The exchanges have a price, he explains: a “pass” of cocaine, a single inhalation, costs 6,000 pesos (1.5 dollars) or a plate of food. Whatever they have in their hands.

This is refuted by the inspector Carmona, who says that, in his opinion, malnutrition is not related to drug use but to poor nutrition. He explains that when they do inspections, that day they serve banquets to the prisoners. “They stick their hands out from behind the bars and grab my leg, telling me to go more often, to go every day because the day we announce a visit, that day they serve beans and meat,” he says.

According to him, it is not just a matter of preference. He says that some people prefer drugs because the food does not arrive in the best condition or in the right portions. This Friday, for example, lunch was a broth without protein or vegetables, a plate with rice and a half-cooked piece of chicken. “This is the lunch that they just served us. The broth is pure water because the pieces of chicken are given to the ‘pens’ in the yard or to those who pay for something else,” he says via WhatsApp, and shares a photograph as proof while hiding the cell phone from the guards. “If they confiscate it, I have to pay for it, because this phone is rented,” he sends.

The “plumas” is what they call in Colombia the prisoners who become bosses of the yards and often engage in criminal activities. They are the untouchables. They regulate who sleeps where, who enters what, how much it costs to use a cell phone or buy drugs. “If you owe money to a drug dealer, [expendedor de droga]they confiscate his food and he doesn’t eat another bite until he pays what he owes,” he says in another message. He also explains that anyone who wants to eat better should buy other foods at the expendio, the official INPEC store in prisons. “If you have money, you can improve your food a little by buying a tomato, a piece of roast chicken or an egg. Everything is solved with money.”

The entity responsible for feeding the incarcerated population is the Penitentiary and Prison Services Unit (USPEC), an organization that has the green light to contract this service and health care with private companies. Estupiñán, from INPEC, acknowledges that they have identified problems with the food that reaches the cells. “We have reported this to some committees,” he says without going into detail. Those who do provide details are the inmates, who have documented on cell phones the state in which the food reaches their plates. They have photos of food with worms, others of plates where there is barely a morsel of protein and others in which the portions do not fill even a quarter of the plate.

Another problem that INPEC recognizes is that those in charge of distributing the food that arrives in pots to the yards are often the inmates themselves. This gives power to the guards. “One of the strategies that we are implementing is that, from now on, the food will be delivered to them to ensure that everyone receives the same amount,” explains Estupiñán, and says that for those who are malnourished or extremely thin they have a “special diet.” To mitigate this, she says that they have had to assign some guards to, in addition to doing the security rounds, watch that the prisoners eat. “We have literally forced them to eat. We almost have to watch them, but we don’t have enough guards for everyone,” explains the deputy director.

The emergency has also been intensified because in the area, near the Magdalena River that flows down from the Andes to the Caribbean, the temperature has reached 41°C and there is no drinking water in El Pesebre. The problems with the aqueduct mean that the water arrives every two or three days, loaded with mud and dirt. The penitentiary entities attribute the responsibility to the Government of Antioquia and the Mayor’s Office of Puerto Triunfo, which are the entities in charge of providing public services in that area of ​​the prison and the adjacent Theme Park (which has lakes, swimming pools and several hotels with drinking water). What Estupiñán does recognize is that none of the food contracts contemplate the supply of bottles of drinking water to alleviate the situation. “If they want bottled water, they can buy it at the store,” he answers. The problem is that in order to do so, the prisoners must have money. “Almost all have enough for one or two bottles,” he says.

The inmate whom this newspaper spoke to via WhatsApp said that he had gone three days without drinking water. He says that he only tries to drink at extreme moments, when the stifling heat of sleeping with seven people in a three-square-meter cell begins to make him sick. “Every time I drink that dirty water that comes out of the taps, I get diarrhea and stomach pain, but the heat is unbearable.” This Friday, while he was writing those messages, he explained that he did not have the money to buy a bottle of water.

EL PAÍS has seen a confidential, internal report from INPEC, the result of several visits by officials to El Pesebre. Dated March of this year, it warns that people deprived of their liberty have “yellowish skin” or permanent paleness, and states that the water arrives “with a yellowish color and visible micro-organic particles.” The problem has been so visible that neither the USPEC nor the INPEC deny that there is a
crisis due to the malnutrition of prisoners.

The Unit tells this newspaper that this year it opened an investigation to determine whether its contractors are failing to comply with food quality standards, but has not yet delivered results. “This process is done through the Consorcio Interalimentos 2024 supervision.” That is, another private contractor is in charge of reviewing and documenting whether there are anomalies in the food in the 128 prisons in the country. They also say that they have been carrying out follow-up meetings and that “in case of finding variables that affect the nutritional conditions of the prison population, the respective corrective measures will be taken to mitigate the emergency.”

But while the corrective measures are in place, there is no one to advocate for the prisoners. The INPEC says that it is leading a “therapeutic community,” the name it gives to programs for the care and prevention of psychoactive substance use. However, it recognizes that the work has been interrupted. The contractors in charge of health services, chosen by the USPEC, have not continued the processes, they say. This month, when the contractor that provides health services was changing, the prison went 21 days without a single medicine to treat the inmates. “The outgoing contractor took all the medicines that were in the prison. They left us with nothing, without a single pill until the new operator arrived,” and it recognizes that the responsibility of monitoring these contracts is the Fiduciaria Central, a private entity that oversees the health resources of the prisoners.

In addition, the medical staff is overwhelmed with the number of cases. There are only two doctors on each 12-hour shift, in charge of the 1,612 inmates. In the 21 days that the prison lasted without health operators, only one doctor was in charge of the prisoners, on a 24-hour shift once a week. While families are adding complaints to the control entities, several entities have joined in to carry out screenings of the inmates’ health situation. The next one will begin this Monday, September 2. Estupiñán, the deputy director of Health, concludes her interview with this newspaper by reading the figures and data that she has printed on several sheets of paper. “There are 15 deaths from diseases associated with malnutrition from 2023 to today,” she admits frankly. “Of these, 90% have died in hospitals. That is, we have guaranteed them access to health services,” she says.

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