Eight shot dead in Honduras in apparent drug gangs' dispute - police

Record ID: 90852

  • Title: Eight shot dead in Honduras in apparent drug gangs' dispute - police
  • Date: 14th August 2016
  • Summary: TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS (AUGUST 14, 2016) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF EXTERIOR OF BAR OUTSIDE WHICH KILLINGS OCCURRED, WITH OFFICIALS ON SCENE
  • Embargoed: 29th August 2016 22:45
  • Keywords: Mara Salvatrucha gang violence Tegucigalpa Central America
  • Location: TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS
  • City: TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS
  • Country: Honduras
  • Topics: Crime/Law/Justice,Crime
  • Reuters ID: LVA0014V3LFER
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: EDIT CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES
    Eight people were shot dead by unknown assailants early on Sunday (August 14) in the outskirts of Honduras's capital Tegucigalpa, police said, an apparent reprisal attack in a bloody gang dispute that has devastated the poor Central-American nation.
    The victims were attacked outside a bar in the southern Altos de Loarque district, an area dominated by Honduras's infamous Mara Salvatrucha (MS) gang. Several men got out of a truck and opened fire with rifles and pistols, a police official said.
    Hours earlier, on Saturday, two people were killed and five injured in the nearby La Rosa neighbourhood, which is controlled by a rival gang, Mara Barrio 18.
    A mother of one victim, Javier Vindei, told Reuters the country's lack of proper security infrastructure leaves her dispirited.
    "No. You can't ask anything (of the president Juan Orlando Hernandez.) What could we ask him? That it's okay? That he sees all the children who are ending up as orphans? My son had two children, and now we have to work even more to provide for them. But you can't do anything round here. Let's put aside the lies. 911 was called and nobody answered. Nobody answered," she said. She asked that her name not be used out of fear for her safety.
    The gangs, which are involved in extortion, drug dealing and contract killings, are fighting over the control of neighbourhoods in major cities across the country, where the homicide rate last year was 60 deaths for every 100,000 people.
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