Gunmen Kill at Least 16 in Two Attacks in Northern Honduras

Gunmen killed at least 16 people in two separate attacks in northern Honduras on Thursday. One attack occurred on a remote palm farm in Rigores, part of the municipality of Trujillo. A spokesperson for Honduras’s National Police, Edgardo Barahona, said that as many as 10 workers were shot dead at the site, though the number is expected to rise.

Local media indicated that armed suspects fired indiscriminately on labourers, including some who had gathered at a local church. Photos showed bodies, some wearing thick rubber boots for work, strewn on the ground outside. According to one report, three sisters were among the dead.

While no motive has been identified in the attack, northern Honduras has been the site of ongoing agrarian conflict for years. The head of Honduras’s Joint Staff of the Armed Forces, Hector Benjamin Valerio Ardon, issued a statement that the armed forces would offer “all necessary logistics” and “all its personnel” to find those responsible.

Separately on Thursday, a second deadly incident unfolded in the Cortes department, near the border with Guatemala. Police officers had travelled from the capital Tegucigalpa to Omoa to carry out an anti-gang operation. Authorities describe what happened next as an ambush.

According to reports, the officers entered a building to search for suspects and were fired upon. Six officers were killed, including a deputy commissioner named Lester Amador, according to the National Police. They were from the Anti-Maras, Gangs and Organised Crime Police Directorate (DIPAMPCO), a unit within the police force.

Suspects may have also been killed or injured in the attack.

” “The state will act firmly to capture those responsible, protect vulnerable communities and guarantee comprehensive justice for all affected victims,” it added. Honduras was under a years-long state of emergency to combat crime starting in 2022. The emergency decree ended in January with the inauguration of right-wing President Nasry “Tito” Asfura, a close ally of United States President Donald Trump, who has prioritised a hardline approach to security in Latin America.