Honduras: the toll of the brawl in a women's prison reassessed at 46 dead

June 21, 2023

Clashes between rival gangs at the Tamara women’s prison in central Honduras have left 46 people dead, some shot dead and others burned to death in a wing of the penitentiary center on fire, according to a new report official revised upwards on Wednesday.

The first toll of this explosion of violence, which took place on Tuesday, was 41 women killed

“46 is the total number of bodies admitted to the morgue,” prosecutors’ spokesman Yuri Mora told AFP on Wednesday, not yet being able to say whether all the victims are prisoners as long as the identification of the body is not complete.

According to the representative of the families of inmates, Delma Ordoñez, the victims are members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang attacked in the wing of the prison they occupied by inmates of the rival Barrio 18 gang.

Some 900 women were imprisoned in the area of the prison, located about 25 km north of the capital Tegucigalpa, where the fire broke out. Despite the intervention of firefighters, the army and the police, it was “completely destroyed” by the flames, according to Ms. Ordoñez.

Honduras is plagued by corruption and the terror reigned by the “maras”, who engage, as in neighboring Guatemala and El Salvador, in racketeering, drug trafficking and hired murder.

The spokesman for the direction of forensic medicine, Issa Alvarado, indicated that for the time being “23 bodies have been identified (…) and have been handed over to their relatives” since Wednesday morning.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the bodies of those killed by firearms had been repatriated to the Tegucigalpa morgue.

Many family members of detainees went to the outskirts of the prison and the morgue in search of information about their imprisoned relatives.

“We expect the process to be quick in order to give a quick response to the families,” Alvarado told AFP.

Doctors must determine the causes of death of each victim because there were “shots, knives, burns”, he said.

The prosecution said on Tuesday that the majority of the victims were burned alive in an arson, while others succumbed to gunshot wounds.

According to Mr. Alvarado, the X-rays carried out on the bodies of the victims show “casings” which “will be transferred to the ballistic laboratory” in order to “determine what type of weapon was used, what type of caliber” and to be able to identify the perpetrators of these crimes.

Honduran President Xiomara Castro (left) said on Tuesday that she was “shattered by the monstrous assassination (…) planned by maras”.

She demanded “accounts” in particular from the Minister of the Interior by promising “drastic measures” and dismissed in the middle of the night the Minister of Security, Ramon Sabillon, replaced by General Gustavo Sanchez, previously director of the national police.

According to the authorities, despite measures taken to control the country’s 26 prisons, which hold around 20,000 people, incarcerated criminal gang leaders continue to order crimes and misdemeanors from their cells.

President since January 2022, Xiomara Castro has promised to fight against criminal gangs by allowing, as in neighboring El Salvador, arrests without a judicial warrant.

Honduras is an important transit point for cocaine from Colombia to the United States. Violence, as well as misery, push thousands of inhabitants to emigrate towards the United States in search of a better life.