Authorities in Honduras are returning to relatives the hacked, burned corpses of 46 women killed in the most extreme violence at a women’s prison in recent memory.
Some of the bodies were so badly burned that they need genetic testing or dental studies to identify, Honduras National Police spokesman Yuri Mora said.
The picture that began to emerge of violence that began on Tuesday at the women’s prison in Tamara, Honduras, was one of a carefully planned massacre of supposed rival gang members by inmates belonging to the notorious Barrio 18 street gang.
Photo: AFP
The carnage has led to calls for reforms of the country’s prison system, and even talk of whether Honduras should emulate the drastic zero tolerance, no privileges prisons set up in neighboring El Salvador by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.
While El Salvador’s crackdown on gangs has given rise to rights violations, it has also proved immensely popular in a country long terrorized by street gangs.
“One of the grave dangers is the Bukele-ization of security problem in this country, with everything that would imply,” Honduran human rights expert Joaquin Mejia said.
Nobody debates whether Honduras’ prisons are in a shameful state.
In Tuesday’s attacks, incarcerated members of the Barrio 18 gang killed 46 other women inmates by spraying them with gunfire, hacking them with machetes and locking survivors in their cells and dousing them with flammable liquid.
Chillingly, the gang members armed themselves with pistols and machetes, brushed past guards and attacked.
They carried locks to shut their victims inside, apparently to burn them to death.
“We believe that this massacre was carried out on orders from a criminal network, and I am sure it was known beforehand, and nothing was done,” Civil Society Group advocate Jessica Sanchez said.
The attack was taped by security cameras up to the moment the gang members destroyed them, Honduran Ministry of Security spokesman Miguel Martinez said, adding that it was a planned attack.
“You can see the moment in which the women overcome the guards, leaving them helpless, and take their keys,” Martinez said.
Honduran President Xiomara Castro said the violence at the prison was “planned by maras [street gangs] with the knowledge and acquiescence of security authorities.”
Castro fired Honduran Minister of Security Ramon Sabillon, and replaced him with Gustavo Sanchez, who had been serving as head of the National Police.
She ordered that all of the country’s 21 prisons be placed for one year under the control of the military police, who would be asked to train 2,000 new guards.
She did not announce any immediate plan to improve the conditions in prisons, which are characterized by overcrowding, crumbling facilities and poorly trained guards.
Security is so lax that inmates often run their own cellblocks, selling prohibited goods and extorting money from other inmates.
Many doubted the answer lies in adopting the kind of brutally regimented prisons that El Salvador has built.
“Building more prisons in Honduras isn’t necessary. Why? Why build more prisons that turn into slaughterhouses for people, when the government has no control over them?” said Roberto Cruz, 54, who runs a small retail outlet in the capital.
“What is needed are professional people to run the prisons,” Cruz said, adding that “it is a big, complex problem that needs an urgent solution.”
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