Honduras army takes over prisons after dozens die in riot

By Reuters: Honduras’ army started taking management of the nation’s violent prisons on Monday, following a gang dispute that left 46 inmates useless at a ladies’s detention middle final week, officers mentioned.

Leftist President Xiomara Castro introduced final week she would hand the army police management of the jail system, a departure from a previous stance of demilitarizing safety, as her administration seeks to cease organized crime exercise inside prisons.

Official video confirmed a whole lot of shirtless male inmates, many tattooed and with their heads shaved, organized on the ground of Honduras’ high-security Tamara jail with their arms over their heads, guarded by closely armed troopers.

The pictures present similarities to ones shared earlier this yr by neighboring right-wing El Salvador’s authorities, which has beefed up jail safety and locked up greater than 62,000 alleged criminals throughout a crackdown on gangs.

“Our mission is to defeat organized crime inside the prisons and we are (also) going after the intellectual authors operating from outside,” Defense Minister Jose Manuel Zelaya mentioned in a tweet.

Tamara, the place some 4,200 inmates are crammed right into a facility with a capability to accommodate 2,500, is one in all two prisons, together with La Tolva, that the army police assumed management over on Monday, Armed Forces spokesperson Antonio Coello mentioned.

In Honduras, some 20,000 inmates coexist in 26 overcrowded prisons, with a United Nations report saying that the nation’s prisons are 34.2% over capability.

Military police on Monday seized pistols, machine weapons, ammunition, magazines and grenades from an space of the Tamara jail occupied by the Barrio 18 gang, Colonel Fernando Munoz instructed reporters.

“The corruption in the prisons is over. We are going to control it and there will be no calls coming out of here to order extortions or executions,” the officer mentioned in a press convention.