Honduras extends state of emergency

The Honduran government decided on Saturday (7th) to extend the state of emergency in the municipalities of Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, which has been in force since December 7th, for another forty-five days. 

The measure, which was due to expire on Friday (6th), is part of the Honduran government’s effort to combat the “national emergency” the Central American country is facing due to rising crime and gang-induced insecurity. 

“The measure is a continuation of PCM 029-2022, which repealed constitutional articles that empower state security organs, most notably the National Police, to better deal with the threat posed by criminal structures,” the national security forces said. 

At the same time, it was decided to extend the scope to another seventy-three administrative districts, hoping to achieve the same “good results” as before.

Xiomara Castro‘s presidential team assured that the decision aims to “continue the frontal attack on criminal structures linked to, among others, extortion, assassinations, drug trafficking and money laundering”. 

As a result, constitutional guarantees in those areas will be suspended until February 20. The state of emergency allows the National Police and other security agencies to conduct targeted operations in what are considered the most violent of the country’s 298 municipalities. 

So far, around 20,000 police officers have been mobilized, who are deployed in alternating shifts. Because this tool is designed to “operate in the hideouts and safehouses of the maras, gangs and other criminal structures,” the operations do not interfere with people’s normal freedom of movement, so they do not fear the heavy police presence and potential verification delays have to have their identity.

According to Honduran police, the PCM 29-2022, as the measure is called, “helped reduce violent deaths and other crimes related to maras and gangs.”

With that in mind, authorities have reported a drop in violence in the streets in recent weeks, due to the arrests of more than 1,300 suspected gang members and their accomplices. 

The director of the National Police, Gustavo Sánchez, assured that during searches and arrests special attention is paid to full respect of human rights.

In Honduras, extortion has escalated over the past twenty years, resulting in hundreds of deaths and the destruction of thousands of micro, small and medium-sized businesses, who have been forced to close their doors and some even the country have left. 

The main criminal gangs operating in the country are Pandilla 18 and MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha-13), as well as a handful of other organized crime structures dedicated to drug trafficking,” Sánchez said. These criminals, in turn, are responsible for a homicide rate of forty per 100,000 people, four times the world average.

With information from latinapress