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Honduras – Honduran President Xiomara Castro is determined to regain control of prisons. She made it public this Sunday on Twitter. The measure is taken after several simultaneous confrontations between gang members in four prisons, which left one dead and seven injured. On Monday, April 10, she will announce the specific actions the government will take in its fight to detain gangs in maximum security locations.
The Honduran prison system is made up of 26 jails and houses 19,658 prisoners, despite the fact that its maximum capacity is 8,000. In addition, less than half of the inmates have been sentenced, according ton official figures published in the newspaper La Prensa.
These numbers show part of the problem that leads to uncontrollable expressions of violence inside prisons, an issue that has been unmanageable for a long time, which is why the prison system has already been declared in a state of emergency in the past.
So for Hondurans it is not news that the president has written on her Twitter: “12 years (144 months) of looting and collusion with drug trafficking, maras, gangs and public and private organized crime, cannot be fixed in 12 months.”
Clashes between gangs are detected and are frequent. On this occasion, the confrontation took place between inmates from the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18 gangs, according to prison authorities. The difference is that, this time, the escalation of the internal conflict in the prisons reached the front pages of the media.
Therefore, the president guarantees an intervention: “Hard, but respectful of the humanity of the defendants, their families and defenders. Crime is fought through prevention, not only with punishment.”
12 years (144 months) of looting and collusion with drug trafficking maras gangs and public and private organized crime cannot be fixed in 12 months.
— Xiomara Castro de Zelaya (@XiomaraCastroZ) April 9, 2023
“I am going to put a strong hand and order in the prisons, until transforming them into Penal Rehabilitation Centers, not into crime and torture schools like what I have inherited,” said the Honduran president.
On Monday he promises to announce “the appointments and the first emergency measures. What matters are the results,” he added.
The chaos
The intervention in prisons is announced by the president after the Simultaneous riots and shootings at four Honduran prisonswhich were registered on Saturday, April 8.
One prisoner dead and seven wounded is the balance left by this episode of the internal war, according to the preliminary report of the National Penitentiary Institute (INP). The deceased was in the llama prison, in the western department of Santa Bárbara, considered high security, where two other prisoners were injured.
At the same time, in the Morocelí prison, known as La Tolva, located in the department of El Paraíso, on the border with Nicaragua, three prisoners were injured, while in the National Penitentiary, near Tegucigalpa, two were injured.
One day after the lack of control, the president’s words reached the inmates and the reaction was immediate. Some prisoners provoked a shooting in the well. At this time it is unknown if there are any injuries or deaths. The gang war continues.
With Efe and local media
