Category Archives: Honduras

‘We can’t live like this’: climate shocks rain down on Honduras’s poorest

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Rural communities like Chapagua that have done least to stoke the climate crisis barely have time to recover from one disaster before another hits

It was around dusk on the third consecutive day of heavy rain when the River Aguán burst its banks and muddy waters surged through the rural community of Chapagua in north-east Honduras, sweeping away crops, motorbikes and livestock.

Most inhabitants fled to higher ground after the category 4 Hurricane Eta made landfall in early November 2020, but fisherman Rosendo García stayed behind, hoping to safeguard the family’s home and animals. After a ravine on the opposite side of the village also flooded, there was no way out.

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Fire devastates Honduras’ Caribbean resort island of Guanaja

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Blaze engulfs more than 200 houses and businesses, forcing hundreds of residents to flee

A huge fire destroyed or damaged more than 200 houses and businesses on the Honduran island of Guanaja on Saturday, forcing hundreds of residents to flee for safety and ravaging the tourism-dependent resort, relief authorities said.

Dramatic video footage shared on social media showed rows of seaside houses engulfed in flames and wooden homes collapsing in Guanaja, a Caribbean island about 44 miles (77km) off the north coast of Honduras.

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Land defenders: will the Cáceres verdict break the ‘cycle of violence’ in Honduras?

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Conviction of businessman who conspired in murder of indigenous rights activist Berta Cáceres raises hopes of end to impunity

When Bertha Zuñiga heard that a former Honduran army intelligence officer and businessman had been found guilty of collaborating in the murder of her mother, Berta Cáceres, she breathed a big sigh of relief. Five years after the environmental campaigner was assassinated by hired hitmen, this was the verdict her family and friends had been waiting for.

“I know there is still a long road, maybe very long and very hard, but to have achieved a guilty verdict against the [former] president of a corporation, [who is] connected to the armed forces: it is unprecedented in our country,” says Zuñiga, 30.

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Berta Cáceres assassination: ex-head of dam company found guilty

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Roberto David Castillo, former Honduran army intelligence officer, found to be co-collaborator in ordering murder

A US-trained former Honduran army intelligence officer who was the president of an internationally-financed hydroelectric company has been found guilty over the assassination of the indigenous environmentalist Berta Cáceres.

Caceres, winner of the Goldman prize for environmental defenders, was shot dead two days before her 45th birthday by hired hitmen on 2 March 2016 after years of threats linked to her opposition of the 22-megawatt Agua Zarca dam.

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Honduran state responsible for trans woman’s murder – court

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Landmark ruling orders state to pay reparations, protect trans people and legalise gender change

In a landmark ruling for transgender rights, the Honduras government has been found responsible for the 2009 murder of the trans woman and activist Vicky Hernández. The ruling, at the inter-American court of human rights, was published on the 12th anniversary of Hernández’s death, and marks the first time the highest regional human rights court has held a state accountable for failing to prevent, investigate and prosecute the death of a trans person.

The court has ordered Honduras, which has the world’s highest rate of murders of trans people, to pay reparations to Hernández’s family and implement a sweeping range of measures designed to protect trans people, including anti-discrimination training for security forces and state collection of data on violence against LGBTQ+ people.

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Refugees and the Armenian genocide: human rights this fortnight in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Colombia to China

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US-made guns are ripping Central America apart and driving migration north | Ioan Grillo

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An iron river of illegal guns flows from the US to Mexico, Central America, and across the hemisphere

The stray bullet from the gang fight struck Katery Ramos when she was 12 years old, playing on the dirt street in the poor Planeta neighbourhood of San Pedro Sula, Honduras. “I was standing up for a moment, afterwards I fell,” she told me, sitting with her mother in a scrubby field near her home.

Related: Biden strikes international deal in bid to stop migrants reaching US border

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Mexico’s vow to tighten border fails to deter US-bound migrants

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As the Biden administration enlists its neighbours in attempts to slow the flow of people, families seeking a future free from hunger and violence journey on

Groups of men, women and children stepped off small boats and on to Mexican soil without showing their documents to anyone.

Drivers quickly bundled them into taxis which sped past an immigration office to a nearby crossroad, where the travelers climbed into a vans for the next leg of their journey toward the US border.

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Facebook knew of Honduran president’s manipulation campaign – and let it continue for 11 months

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Juan Orlando Hernández falsely inflated his posts’ popularity for nearly a year after the company was informed about it

Facebook allowed the president of Honduras to artificially inflate the appearance of popularity on his posts for nearly a year after the company was first alerted to the activity.

The astroturfing – the digital equivalent of a bussed-in crowd – was just one facet of a broader online disinformation effort that the administration has used to attack critics and undermine social movements, Honduran activists and scholars say.

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How Facebook let fake engagement distort global politics: a whistleblower’s account

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The inside story of Sophie Zhang’s battle to combat rampant manipulation as executives delayed and deflected

Shortly before Sophie Zhang lost access to Facebook’s systems, she published one final message on the company’s internal forum, a farewell tradition at Facebook known as a “badge post”.

“Officially, I’m a low-level [data scientist] who’s being fired today for poor performance,” the post began. “In practice, in the 2.5 years I’ve spent at Facebook, I’ve … found multiple blatant attempts by foreign national governments to abuse our platform on vast scales to mislead their own citizenry, and caused international news on multiple occasions.”

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Revealed: the Facebook loophole that lets world leaders deceive and harass their citizens

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A Guardian investigation exposes the breadth of state-backed manipulation of the platform

Facebook has repeatedly allowed world leaders and politicians to use its platform to deceive the public or harass opponents despite being alerted to evidence of the wrongdoing.

The Guardian has seen extensive internal documentation showing how Facebook handled more than 30 cases across 25 countries of politically manipulative behavior that was proactively detected by company staff.

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The US has been silent on Honduras’s drug problem, but that might be about to change

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Analysis: The Biden administration is expected to take a cooler approach to President Hernández than Donald Trump did

For the US, this is a painfully embarrassing fortnight to count Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández as a key ally in Central America.

On Monday he was named in a New York federal courtroom as a co-conspirator in the conviction of his associate, Geovanny Fuentes Ramirez, for smuggling tons of cocaine into the US, and receiving a $250,000 bribe from Fuentes, an alleged drug kingpin.

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‘Blindsided’: Biden faces tough test in reversing Trump’s cruel border legacy

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As unaccompanied children reach the US, Republicans seek political gain. The White House has a fight on its hands

Lauded for his human touch, Joe Biden is facing an early political and moral test over how his government treats thousands of migrant children who make the dangerous journey to America alone.

Related: Is there a crisis at the border? Advocates in Texas say it's 'political manipulation'

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Convicted drug trafficker testifies that he bribed Honduran president

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Ex-cartel leader says he bribed Juan Orlando Hernández with $250,000 in exchange for government contracts and protection

A convicted drug trafficker and former cartel leader has testified in a New York court that he bribed the Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernández, with $250,000 in exchange for government contracts as well as protection from capture and extradition to the United States.

“It was for protection so neither the military nor preventative police would arrest me or my brother in Honduras and so we would not be extradited to the United States,” Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga, a leader of the Honduran drug clan Los Cachiros, testified in the trial of alleged drug trafficker Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez.

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Man leaves church and reunites with family after years in sanctuary from deportation

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Alex García from Honduras sought sanctuary in Missouri church in 2017 under threat of removal from US by Trump administration

After three and a half years living inside a Missouri church to avoid deportation, a Honduran man has finally stepped outside, following a promise from Joe Biden’s administration to let him be.

Alex García, a married father of five, was slated for removal from the US in 2017, the first year of Donald Trump’s administration. Days before he would have been deported, Christ Church United Church of Christ in the St Louis suburb of Maplewood offered sanctuary.

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Eight-year-old boy dies as migrants risk Arctic conditions to cross river into US

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Child drowned while crossing the freezing Rio Grande with his family amid unprecedented weather conditions at US-Mexico border

An eight-year-old Honduran boy has become the latest victim in a string of drownings on the US-Mexico border as migrants attempt to cross the Rio Grande in treacherous winter conditions.

The child, who has not been named, drowned on Wednesday while attempting to cross the freezing river with his family amid unprecedented Arctic conditions in the borderlands which have killed more than 30 people and left millions in Mexico and Texas without power, water and food.

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Death of nurse detained over Covid curfew highlights violence faced by Honduran women

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The death of Keyla Martínez, 26, is being treated as a murder – she is one of 29 women killed in the country so far this year

Keyla Martínez screamed for help from inside the police cell, but no one came to save her.

Martínez, a 26-year-old trainee nurse from La Esperanza, western Honduras, died in police custody last weekend after being detained for breaching a coronavirus curfew.

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Honduras lawmakers seek to lock in ban on abortion for ever

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A constitutional reform would require a three-quarters majority in congress to overturn Latin America’s most draconian ban

Legislators in Honduras are pushing a constitutional reform through Congress that would make it virtually impossible to legalise abortion in the country – now or in the future.

Related: Argentina legalizing abortion will spur reform in Latin America, minister says

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The migrants Trump forced Mexico to stop: Ada Trillo’s best photograph

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‘Trump had threatened Mexico with tariffs if it let in this caravan from Honduras. Two hours after crossing this river, many were teargassed then deported’

I had been following a migrant caravan north from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, for around 10 days. It was 23 January 2020, and this was the moment the group crossed the Suchiate river, which divides Guatemala from Mexico.

The Mexican authorities had deployed the national guard to stop the caravan entering their country because Trump had threatened to increase tariffs on Mexican goods coming into the United States if they let migrants in. Previously, migrants had been allowed to traverse the length of Mexico with no problem.

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Migrant caravan trekking north to US border clashes with Guatemalan troops

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  • Honduran migrants began crossing Guatemalan border Friday
  • Troops use teargas, shields and sticks to repel weary travellers

Truncheon-wielding Guatemalan troops have clashed with Central American asylum seekers trying to push their way north towards the US border as Donald Trump’s presidency entered its final days.

Thousands of mostly Honduran migrants began crossing the Guatemalan border on Friday night, having set off on foot from the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula in the early hours of Thursday.

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