Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
Recent findings from the minus fourteen people killed and wrapped in plastic in Honduras reflect the resurgence of violence in the country, where authorities attribute most of these crimes to gang-related events and organized crime.
Fourteen people, including a minor under the age of 14, were killed in Honduras in the first twelve days of January in events that have in common that the victims have been halladas wrapped in plastic packaging.
On one side of each body, written on a piece of cardboard, the following message was found: “Extortionadores.Punto i com @”.
Violent deaths have been attributed to gangs, known as maras, fighting territories for drug sales.
LEA: They capture alleged thug linked to crimes of bagged bodies
“This type of homicide is certainly not new the number of people who have appeared (dead) is what is drawing our attention, “said Honduran police spokesman Jair Meza.
According to initial investigations, he added, “criminal structures of gangs and gangs are behind this type of crime, by internal fights or with other types of structures.”
Meza indicated that investigation teams are analyzing whether the killings have “any relationship in common,” but so far “it has not been possible to establish whether or not there is any kind of message between the scenes.”
He noted that the written message found next to the corpses is “a way to be able to deter this investigative part.” of criminal acts.
“We are here to work with our communities and so that these crimes do not go unpunished, that is our mission,” the police spokesman stressed.
VIOLENCE INTENSIFIES
The first two “packaged” bodies were found on January 3 in a populous neighborhood of San Pedro Sula, in the north of the country, a scene that was repeated the following days in Tegucigalpa, Tela, Choloma and Trinidad, in the center, Caribbean, North and West dand Honduras.
Such killings have been “very notorious” so far in 2021 and “aggravate the situation of violence and crime in the country,” said the director of the Violence Observatory of the National Autonomous University of Efe. Honduras (UNAH), Migdonia Ayestas.
“It’s really a concern that in thirteen days (January) fourteen people (murdered) go in sacks, bags, so one wonders: what’s going on,” he noted.
Crimes, according to the expert, “strip away the serious problem of insecurity and impunity, because when the facts are not investigated and those responsible are not established.”
In his view, the killings could be related to people he has decided to “take justice for his hand or selective crimes “.
YOUNG PEOPLE, MAIN VICTIMS
Throughout this framework, young people are the population most affected by violence caused by organized crime and gangs, he added.
“The main risk factor for being a victim of violence is being a young person under the age of 30 in this country,” Ayestas stressed.
A report from the NGO Casa Alianza corroborates this appreciation since only last November there were 62 homicides of people under the age of 23, many of them children.
CRIME INVESTIGATION
The state Commissioner for Human Rights in Honduras has today lamented that such killings occur in the country and urged the authorities in charge of security and justice operators to “act promptly and with due diligence to clarify these violent deaths and to identify, prosecute and sanction those responsible materially and intellectually “.
These deaths have “alarmed” the Honduran population, stressed the human rights body, which called for respect for the provisions of Article 59 of the Constitution of Honduras, which states that “The human person is the supreme end of society and the state.all have the obligation to respect and protect it “.
The Central American country recorded at least 3,482 homicides in 2020, figures that show “the high rates of violence and impunity in Honduras, particularly in cases of violations of the right to life.” situation that frustrates the expectations and opportunities of justice and development in the country “, he added.
The state has the “responsibility through the security institutions responsible for ensuring to prevent, deter, control and combat all kinds of crimes, misdemeanors or infractions, as well as maintain and restore internal peace, tranquility, order public, security based on respect for human rights, “the Commissioner for Human Rights emphasized.
Violence caused by organized crime, drug trafficking and gangs is one of the main problems plaguing the Central American nation, with 9.3 million people, mostly poor.