41 dead in gang violence at Honduras women’s prison
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Relatives of inmates wait for news about their loved ones outside the prison.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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TEGUCIGALPA - Clashes between rival gangs at a women’s prison in Honduras left at least 41 people dead on Tuesday, the police said.
The violence took place at a prison some 25km north of the capital Tegucigalpa, according to the police spokesman, Mr Edgardo Barahona, who put the “preliminary” toll at 41 women, though it was unclear if they were all inmates.
According to Ms Delma Ordonez, who represents family members of the prisoners, members of a gang had entered the cell of a rival group and set it on fire.
That part of the prison was “completely destroyed”, she told media.
The Centro Femenino de Adaptacion Social correctional facility in Tamara held some 900 inmates, said Ms Ordonez.
Deputy Security Minister Julissa Villanueva, on her Twitter account, vowed a tough response to the violence and announced a state of emergency as well as “immediate intervention with firefighters, police and military”.
Honduras is a country wracked by corruption and gangs that have infiltrated even the top levels of government.
Along with neighbours El Salvador and Guatemala, Honduras forms Central America’s so-called “triangle of death” plagued by the murderous gangs called “maras” that control drug trafficking and organised crime.
Drug trafficking groups and gang members are largely responsible for the soaring rate of homicides in Honduras, which at 40 murders per 100,000 inhabitants in 2022 was four times higher than the world average.
Many young people have given up hope of a better future and think only of migrating to the United States.
‘Narco state’
Honduras is a major transit country for Colombian cocaine and other narcotics headed mainly to the US.
The former Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, was extradited to the US on drug charges in April 2022 – just over a year after his brother Tony was sentenced in New York to life in prison.
US prosecutors say Hernandez turned Honduras into a “narco-state” involving the military, police and civilians in drug trafficking.
Inmates’ relatives waiting for news about their loved ones outside the prison.
PHOTO: REUTERS
In May 2022, former national police chief Juan Carlos Bonilla was also sent to the US to stand trial for allegedly supervising drug trafficking operations on behalf of his boss, Hernandez.
The country’s current President, Ms Xiomara Castro, a leftist, has vowed to tackle criminal gangs, in 2022 temporarily lifting certain constitutional guarantees to allow the police to make arrests without warrants.
One objective of the crackdown, Ms Castro said, was to rein in rampant extortion by gangs, which she described as “one of the main reasons for migration and the shuttering of small and medium enterprises” in Honduras.
In neighboring El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele has led a “war” on gangs that has rounded up more than 60,000 suspected members so far. AFP
