Inside El Salvador's secretive prison pits where notorious gangs are crammed together like livestock in cells the size of a shed

• New report reveals the shocking conditions that members of El Salvador's violent and bloody MS-13 and M18 gangs are forced to live in
• Huddled in holding cells designed for 72-hour stays - some men have been exposed to unsanitary and diseased conditions for over a year
• An uneasy truce has existed since March 2012 between the two gangs

Prison Pits: Members of El Salvador's rival gangs the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18 (M18) are penned in cages that are only meant to be used for temporary stays

Both gangs have their roots in Southern California, where young men seeking refuge from Central America's civil wars formed violent gangs on the streets of Los Angeles and its suburbs in the 1980s

Murder Rates: A U.N. report said El Salvador and neighboring Honduras have the highest homicide rates in the world with 66 and 82.1 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, respectively, in 2010

Inhumane Conditions: Killings in El Salvador, which can average 12 to 15 per day, do appear to have declined after the truce was declared in March 2012

Necessary: The unprecedented truce helped bring murders down to an average of five per day from 12 before the agreement

The two gangs have been battling it out for almost two decades since they returned from LA to El Salvador

An estimated 50,000 Salvadorans belong to the street gangs that have terrified citizens and left this small Central American nation of 6 million with one of the world's highest murder rates

In El Salvador, police say, about 10,000 members of Barrio 18 and MS-13 are in jail's like these

Tattoos: The prisoners sport their gang tattoos - which denote the membership of either the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) or Barrio 18 (M18) gangs

Not in the Agreement: Under the truce agreement, gang leaders imprisoned with their members are supposed to receive 'intimate visits' in jail - this is clearly not happening

The aim of the truce was to reduce the growing number of shootings and deaths by centering on the younger gang members and taking some of the weapons off the streets

Most Central American nations have responded to the region's crime with tough anti-gang laws, which have added to problems of overcrowding and violence in their prison systems

The truce arose after 13 people were killed when gang members from MS-13 opened fire on a bus and then torched it in 2012

Critics of the truce say their interest is not surprising, because it allows the gangs to consolidate their power inside the prisons

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• "El Salvador's secretive prison pits where notorious gangs are crammed together like livestock in cells the size of a shed "
•  Prison Pit | VICE