Military take control of prisons in Honduras after death of inmates

Hundreds of soldiers began Monday to take control of the violent prisons in Honduras, after the killing of 46 inmates in a women’s prison last week for disputes between rival gangs and an escalation of insecurity in the country, authorities said.

President Xiomara Castro announced last week the return of control of the prison system, dominated by criminals, to the Public Order Military Police (PMOP), in a twist in her proposal to demilitarize security, after the deadly brawl in the women’s prison between members of the Barrio 18 gang and their rival Mara Salvatrucha.

“The life and safety of citizens and their property is guaranteed by the Constitution. Our mission is to defeat organized crime that is in jails and we go after the masterminds that operate from outside,” the Defense Minister said in a tweet. Jose Manuel Zelaya.

Hundreds of inmates with shaved heads, in shorts and without shirts, and many of them tattooed, were seated on the floor, close together, in rows, while inspections were carried out in two high-security prisons on Monday.

The inmates were closely watched by soldiers dressed in combat gear, heavily armed and with their faces covered, in the high-security prison of Támara, located about 15 kilometers north of Tegucigalpa, according to material released by the Ministry of Security. .

The images recall the operations launched in neighboring El Salvador by military forces in a controversial “war” against violent gangs, in which more than 60,000 members of the gangs dedicated to extortion, hitmen, drug trafficking, bloody vendettas and territorial disputes between rival groups.

The Armed Forces spokesman, Captain Antonio Coello, reported that in addition to the overcrowded Támara prison, where some 4,200 inmates are crammed into a structure with a capacity to house 2,500, the high-security La Tolva prison, some 65 kilometers east of the capital and with 1,963 inmates.

The Women’s Social Adaptation Center, which was the scene of the death of the 46 women, was taken over in the same way on Monday by the authorities. “Weapons were found,” Coello told local media.

Frequent fight scenes

The 26 demolished Honduran prisons, where some 20,000 inmates live in unsanitary conditions, a precarious diet and where the corruption of the custodians dominates, are controlled by organized crime groups, according to experts.

The country’s overcrowded prisons are frequent scenes of bloody brawls.

In the operations on Monday at the Támara prison, where the inmates were subdued by the military and taken from the modules to open areas, a search obtained pistols, machine guns, ammunition, chargers, and grenades in the area occupied by Barrio 18, the authorities they described it as an “arsenal”.

In the Tolva prison, large-caliber weapons, satellite phones and homemade explosives were also seized, according to a preliminary report.

“Corruption in prisons has ended here, we are going to control them and calls to order extortion or executions will not come out of here again,” said the head of the PMOP, Colonel Fernando Muñoz, at a press conference.

Castro also incorporated the forces into the security operations launched throughout the country, which in principle was only carried out by the police and a fraction of the PMOP, in the fight against organized crime in December, since when a state of emergency was imposed in the cities and towns hardest hit by criminal violence.

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