El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele has tightened his grip on power and made life ever-more difficult for critics -- now a growing number face the prospect of a long and painful exile.

At 44 years old, the self-styled world's "coolest dictator" has been in power for six years, and has just scrapped constitutional term limits, raising the prospect he could rule for many more.

For good measure, he and his allies also passed a "foreign agents" law, similar to those used to crush dissent in Russia, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Against this backdrop, about 80 human rights activists, journalists, lawyers and environmentalists have left El Salvador in the last four months, according to an AFP tally, fleeing what they call "escalating repression" and the risk of imprisonment.

AFP spoke to several

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