Another 18 prisoners dead in new Honduras jail conflict: Military

18 individuals have been killed in Sunday afternoon violence between prisoners at a jail in central Honduras, lower than two days after one other 18 died in violence at a separate facility, a army spokesman instructed native media.

The spokesman for the mixed nationwide safety pressure referred to as Fusina launched an inventory of names of the 18 dead and two injured, saying that “firearms, knives and machetes” have been used in the conflict in El Porvenir jail north of the capital Tegucigalpa.

The violence adopted in a single day unrest earlier in the weekend at a facility in the northern port city of Tela that killed 18 inmates and wounded 16 others.

Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, grappling with a latest wave of jail killings, had ordered the military and the police on Tuesday to take full management of the nation’s 27 prisons, that are badly overcrowded with some 21,000 inmates.

On Saturday, prime army officer Basic Tito Livio Moreno indicated that the army could be deployed in 18 penal facilities recognized as “high risk.”

Hernandez introduced the crackdown after the killings on December 14 of 5 members of feared gang Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) by a fellow detainee on the excessive-safety jail in La Tolva, 25 miles east of Tegucigalpa.

That got here only a day after Pedro Idelfonso Armas, the warden of El Pozo the nation’s primary excessive-safety jail, in the western metropolis of Santa Barbara — was shot dead in the south of the nation.

Honduras has been affected by drug trafficking, gangs, poverty and corruption.

It suffers from one of the very best murder charges in the world exterior areas of armed battle, having registered 41.2 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2018.

To combat this scourge, Hernandez created a army police pressure financed by a new tax, and constructed particular prisons for gang members.

The sky-excessive crime price has been a key issue behind a wave of migration towards the US, notably by minors who say they worry being compelled into gangs.