Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Corpses in bags and sheets they reappeared in the streets of the capital Honduran, in a rebound in violence that affects northern Central America after a truce due to isolation to contain the contagion of covid-19.
In a single night, on August 13, there were synchronized attacks by the gangs in different parts of Tegucigalpa, where they left five dead that the authorities attributed to the “war” between the gangs to control territory.
The gangs that they murder, extortion and robbery have terrorized for decades the population of the main cities of the countries of the Northern Triangle of Central America -Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras– often with the complicity of the police.
In mid-March, a decline in the operations of the criminal gangs in all three countries, when the governments ordered the confinement of the population to reduce the spread of the pandemic that was then looming in Central America.
– Gang attacks –
But after a few weeks off, the criminality rampant again, especially in Guatemala and Honduras, with gang attacks while isolation persists with lukewarm measures of reopening in the economy.
The change was evident in Honduras with the appearance of bodies in bags and sheets on public roads and shooting massacres of three or more people.
So far this year, Honduras recorded “24 multiple homicides (in which) more than 80 people have lost their lives, “said the director of the Observatory of Violence of the National University, Migdonia Ayestas.
As of August 2019, there were 144 victims of homicides multiple, but Ayestas explained that it cannot be compared due to the curfew in force this year.
According to the Honduran police, 2,322 murders were registered as of mid-August 2019, and in the same period of 2020 there were 1,934, in a population of 9.3 million inhabitants.
Guatemala continues to accompany Honduras with high levels of homicides, while El Salvador maintains a substantial reduction, which specialists attribute to actions taken by the government of Here’s to watching.
Guatemala maintains figures similar to those of Honduras, with 1,909 homicides from January to July 2020, while in 2019 they reached 2,805, with a population of more than 17 million inhabitants.
According to the National Civil Police (PNC) of Guatemala, after July 26, when the curfew hours were reduced and the store reopened, there were several armed attacks by gang members who had stopped operating during the months of confinement.
– El Salvador breathes –
Contrary to Honduras and Guatemala, El Salvador has not had a spike in criminal violence.
With 6.6 million inhabitants, El Salvador managed to reduce homicides from 1,729 from January to July 2019 to 692 in the same period of 2020, without perceiving an increase in the opening period.
“El Salvador came off the list of the most violent countries in the world. We have become a benchmark in terms of security in the region,” the Minister of Justice and Public Security, Rogelio Rivas, highlighted on Twitter.
On June 1, 2019, according to that portfolio, Watch received the country with an average of 9 to 10 homicides per day, but at the end of that year the figure fell to 4.7 violent deaths a day.
El Salvador passed 52 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2018 to 36 per 100,000 in 2019.
Rivas attributes the loss to the Territorial Control plan promoted by the Salvadoran government.
The plan includes control of the prisons, cutting off communication abroad for gang leaders, increasing the operation of the National Civil Police with the support of the army, and combating extortion.
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