Some 46 women were brutally murdered in a prison riot in the town of Tamara in Honduras on last week by a rival prison gang.
Several women were burned to death in the prison cells as the gang walked around wielding guns and machetes as shots rang out and they slashed the inmates in question.
Insider reported, “A group of armed people went to the cell block of a rival gang, locked the doors, opened fired on those inside. They used some kind of oil to set fire to them.” said the chief of operations for the country’s national police, Juan Lopez Rochez.
The gang war was between the Barrio 18 gang and the Mara Salvatrcuha gang with the attack carried out by the Barrio 18 gang.
The National Committee for the Prevention of Torture director Elvia Valle said they were killing selectively.
“It was like a horror movie. This tragedy should never have happened,” she said.
According to an AP report, Honduran President Xiomara Castro said that the attack was planned “with the knowledge and acquiescence of security authorities.”
Castro said that she will take drastic measures and has already fired her security minister Ramon Sabillon.
Relative of inmates gathered outside the prison trying to find out what happened to their loved ones.
The head of the country’s prison system, Julissa Villanueva said that the riot started because of recent attempts by authorities to crack down on illicit activity inside prisons. Villanueva said that the violence was due to “The actions we are taking against organized crime. We will not back down.”
Gang violence is apparently common place in Honduran prisons. In February 2012 several hundred prisoners were killed in a fire in an overcrowded prison in Comayagua.
In 2017, girls at a shelter for troubled youths in Guatemala set fire to mattresses to protest rapes and other mistreatment at the overcrowded facility. The incident resulted in 41 deaths.
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