Hundreds of police were deployed Tuesday, December 6 in poor neighborhoods of Honduras to "
tackle organized crime head-on
", according to the national police chief, on the first day of the entry into force of the state of 'exception.
Faced with pressure from her fellow citizens, the President of Honduras Xiomara Castro had decreed a state of exception last Thursday, in order, according to her, to reinforce the government's strategy aimed at "
immediately recovering the territories of lawlessness
".
20,000 police mobilized in all
Under this decree, certain constitutional guarantees are suspended for 30 days, starting this Tuesday, allowing the police to make arrests without warrants in 89 neighborhoods of Tegucigalpa, the capital, and 73 districts of San Pedro Sula, the industrial capital.
Some 20,000 police officers will take turns as part of this operation, including members of the public order military police (PMOP), announced the director of the police, Gustavo Sanchez.
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In a ceremony held on a dusty football pitch in the south of the capital, Gustavo Sanchez ordered the first 600 officers and agents to begin deploying to the city's poor gang-controlled neighborhoods.
“
We are tackling organized crime head
-on,” he told a news conference.
This operation "
aims to confront the criminal structures called Pandilla 18 and MS-13
", in reference to the two largest gangs in Honduras, as well as other "
organized crime structures dedicated to drug trafficking
", he added.
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Announcing a "
state of exception
" in the context of a "
national emergency
", the President of Honduras Xiomara Castro stressed on Thursday that the offensive was aimed above all at fighting against the perpetrators of extortion, "
one of the main causes of migration and the closure of small and medium-sized enterprises
”.
She was under pressure as many citizens ask her to follow the example of El Salvador, a neighboring country of Honduras where the government of Nayib Bukele has imposed a state of emergency, allowing the police to make arrests without warrants to fight against gangs.
The state of exception “
is a good thing because of insecurity.
I was assaulted, they put a gun to my head and took my cell phone.
I told the police and they did nothing
,” Victoria Ruiz, 35, a vendor in the La Alemán neighborhood, told AFP.
With 40 murders per 100,000 people, the crime rate in Honduras is four times higher than the world average, a ratio widely blamed on gangs and drug traffickers.
Honduras is at the heart of the "
triangle of death
", an area of Central America plagued by violence, poverty and corruption.
Criminal gangs, called “
maras
”, reign terror there, as well as in El Salvador and Guatemala.