Gang members in a women’s prison in Honduras are “responsible for the killing of 46 women on Tuesday.”
Most of the victims died of injuries inflicted by machetes, while others were burnt to death, Honduras’ police said on Wednesday. The incident happened in Tamara town, some 50 kilometres northwest of Honduras' capital, Tegucigalpa.
Juan Lopez Rochez, the chief of national police operations, said the gang members, who were also armed with guns, sneaked the illegal weapons into the correctional facility by conspiring with prison officers.
Some of the prisoners were fatally shot, others hacked and the remaining were victims of arson, said Rochez as quoted by AP news agency.
Those who died in the fire were first doused in a flammable liquid and thereafter set alight, according to police.
Gang rivalry
Barrio 18 gang, reportedly made up of hardcore prisoners, had allegedly threatened some of the inmates before the Tuesday incident, AP reports, citing relatives of the victims.
The suspects even carried padlocks to shut their victims inside holding cells with the aim of burning them to death, police said.
Rochez said the attack was triggered by “gang rivalry inside the prison.”
Miguel Martinez, a security ministry spokesperson, said the attack was recorded by surveillance cameras, up to the moment the gang members destroyed them in what he called a “planned” attack.
“You can see the moment in which the women overcome the guards, leaving them helpless, and take their keys,” Martinez told AP news agency.
President Xiomara Castro termed the attack “monstrous.” He, consequently, fired Security Minister Ramon Sabillon, and replaced him with Gustavo Sanchez, who had been serving as head of the national police.
An investigation into the Tuesday incident is ongoing, with attention focused on how the inmates acquired the weapons.
