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This story republished with permission was originally run by El Faro English.

We published explosive stories about the president of El Salvador.

Now we can't go home.

By Oscar Martinez and Carlos Martinez.

Read by Joseph Valderrama.

We We figured we would spend only a few days out of the country. We figured that within a week of publishing, some other matter would distract the Salvadoran government.

We would weigh the risks of returning and would then go back. We left with carry-on

bags. No one was carrying more than ten pairs of underwear. We had invented a routine for these

situations, which had worked out fine so many times before. Preventative departure. One of us, for the first time, mentioned that the

government would make us pay dearly. But we kept repeating preventative departure. We kept

repeating it a week later, two weeks later, a month after we could not return.

The reason for our preventative departure was a series of videos our newspaper El Faro was about to publish.

The first installment, titled Charlie's Confessions, interview with a gang leader on his secret packs with Najib Bukele, was published in early May.

By then, the journalists who had done the interviews were in different locations, New York,

Mexico City, Guatemala City, Los Angeles.

In El Salvador, the popular dictator Najib Bukele is the king of social media.

Thumbs up, hearts, comments, and views are the currency of his kingdom.

His most watched video on YouTube about the Secott Mega Prison,

...