At least 18 people died Sunday, December 22, in a jail in a central Honduran prison, two days after a shooting that killed the same number in another penitentiary in the north of the country, announced a door – word of the army.
The new confrontation "With a gun, knife and machete", who also injured two people, broke out in El Porvenir prison, 60 kilometers north of the capital Tegucigalpa, said Lt. José Coello, publishing the list of victims.
In the night of Friday to Saturday, another shooting had also left 18 dead, as well as 16 wounded, in the prison of the port city of Tela, 200 km northwest of Tegucigalpa.
These two massacres occurred shortly after Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, citing the need to stem a wave of prison killings, on December 17 ordered police and the military to take complete control of the 27 prisons. of the country, where more than 21,000 detainees are piled up.
One of the most dangerous countries in the world
The presidential decision was taken three days after the assassination of five members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang (MS-13) by a fellow prisoner from La Tolva high security prison, about 40 kilometers east of Tegucigalpa . The day before, Pedro Idelfonso Armas, the director of the main high-security prison in the country of El Pozo-I, in Santa Barbara (west of the country), had been shot dead.
Armas had been suspended shortly before for the purpose of investigating his presence during the assassination by detainees of Magdaleno Meza, a drug trafficker whose confessions and note books had allowed him to accuse the brother of Honduran president, Juan Antonio "Tony" Hernandez. The latter was found guilty of drug trafficking by a New York court.
According to a video that circulated on social media, the prison director was speaking to Magdaleno Meza when guards opened fire, causing confusion that allowed a dozen inmates to shoot the drug dealer at point-blank range.
In February 2012, 362 detainees died in the fire at their prison in Comayagua (central Honduras). Two other fires in prison centers left 107 dead in April 2014 in San Pedro Sula (north), and 68 victims in June 2008, near the port of La Ceiba (Caribbean coast).
Honduras remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world with a rate of 40 homicides per 100,000 population in 2018, after a record 86.5 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2011, almost nine times the world average.
