Global Courant
San Pedro Sula, Honduras.
The ungovernability in the penal centers of Hondurasin which multiple armed confrontations, arson and riots have been generated, have caused the death of more than 900 inmates in the prisons of Honduras in the last 20 yearsthat far from being reformatories are schools of crime.
One of the bloodiest massacres in Honduras and Latin America is the one that occurred on April 5, 2003 at Granja El Porvenir, where 69 people were murdered, of whom 61 were members of the 18 Gang, another 5 inmates without affiliation with criminal structure and three women, one of them a minor, who visited the penal center and were victims of violence. In this violent event, 39 people were also injured.
On May 17, 2004, in the extinct San Pedro Sula prison, there was a multiple death considered one of the most grotesque in the world, a fire killed 107 gang members of the mara MS and another 25 were seriously injured. . The incident consumed the module where these people were and most of the bodies were burned. Honduras was condemned by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights for this terrible act.
On April 24, 2008, 9 people were killed in the now extinct Sampedrana prison, as a result of this fact a group of inmates were transferred to the Támara National Penitentiary; and on May 3, 2008, 18 people who were part of these recently transferred, died in a bloody brawl.
Between 2006 and 2012, there were a total of 641 violent deaths and 114 natural deaths in Honduran prisons, according to data from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
dates
April 5, 2003: Death. In La Granja, El Porvenir, 69 gang members, 5 inmates and three visiting women are murdered.
December 20, 2019: Crisis In the Tela prison, 18 people were killed and then another 3 injured died
December 22, 2019: Lack of control. In the Syrian prison of Francisco Morazán, 19 died in a riot
On October 14, 2011, a confrontation took place in the extinct Sampedrano prison that left 9 prisoners dead, and six months later, in April 2012, 13 prisoners were killed in similar circumstances.
On February 14, 2012, instead of “enjoying” the day of love and friendship, 362 inmates were consumed by the flames of a fire at the Comayagua penal farm; This gruesome event is classified as one of the most serious in the prison history of the American continent.
Another 30 inmates were injured in that event, which resulted in a huge forensic journey, which lasted several days with the mission of cadaveric examinations. On August 3, 2013, three gang members died, another 9 were injured, and three guards were injured in a brawl that took place at the Marco Aurelio Soto National Penitentiary.
On December 19, 2013, a group of inmates with no gang affiliation began a brawl that killed 13 prisoners. On December 3, 2019, 4 minors died in the Renaciendo juvenile center, this due to a fight between gangs. On Friday, December 20, 2019, in the Tela prison, 18 people were killed, but then 3 of the 15 injured died in that altercation.
Five other MS gang members were killed that same December in La Tolva, Morocelí, El Paraíso, by an inmate they knew as “El Sanguinario.”
On December 22, 2019, 19 people were killed in a riot in the Siria prison, El Porvenir, Francisco Morazán. On May 24, 2020, at the Women’s Center for Social Adaptation (Cefas) in Támara Francisco Morazán, there was a riot between female gang members and the result was six dead inmates and at least three other injuries.
On August 6, 2020, three alleged members of the 18 gang were hanged by their companions in “La Tolva” in Morocelí El Paraíso.
On March 10, 2021, in the Syrian penitentiary, one inmate died and three were injured; On June 7 of that year at El Pozo de Ilama Santa Bárbara, six inmates suffered injuries from the explosion of a grenade and simultaneously that day another three were injured in the Syrian penitentiary due to a confrontation. Ten days later, 3 inmates died and 39 were injured in February La Tolva de Morocelí.
On January 27, 2022, 4 people died and 11 were injured in a fight in the El Porvenir prison, Atlántida.
On Monday, July 4, 2022, 6 gang members from Mara 18 were violently killed in the El Pozo prison.
On April 8, 2023, there was a simultaneous confrontation between the MS gang and the 18 gang in four prisons, which left one dead and seven injured. The events occurred in the Ilama prison, in Morocelí and the two main prisons in Francisco Morazán.
International organizations have denounced that the Honduran prison system is overcrowded by more than 200%, even with the construction of maximum security prisons and the failed strategies of recent years.
