Honduras gang violence forces thousands from their homes

After criminals recently forced a family to leave their home in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, the owner again tried to rent it out, this time, to a young couple.

On moving day, the pair and three friends helping them were kidnapped. Their bodies were found nearby a week later.

The grisly tale has highlighted the terrors faced by Hondurans at the hands of criminal gangs and drug traffickers, which have made it one of the most violent countries not at war.

Honduras, like some other Latin American nations, has also seen high levels of forced displacement due to gangs taking over families' homes.

People flee because of "threats, extortion, the murder of a family member, the dispossession of goods and properties and the recruitment of children," said Elsy Reyes, head of human mobility at the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).

"They even give them 24-hour deadlines to leave," she told AFP.

Gangs and drug traffickers maintain "a mini-government" in the territories they control, according to the national ombudsman's office, which has a unit dedicated to "internal forced displacement."

In 2023, the office received 1,761 complaints of forced displacement, while a UNHCR study showed there had been 247,000 cases in Honduras between 2004 and 2018.

Reyes said the land registry was carrying out a count of abandoned homes, which stood at 50,000 in 2018.

- Thousands flee country -

Six suspects were arrested for the murder of the young tenants and their friends in the working-class neighborhood of Mirador de Oriente, which authorities blamed on the feared Barrio 18 gang.

The homicide rate in Honduras stood at 34 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023, six times the world average. It had however improved from a decade ago when it stood at 79 per 100,000.

In addition to internally displaced persons, thousands of Hondurans are fleeing abroad.

"It's a gradual increase, every year," said Kathryn Lo, the UNHCR representative in Honduras.

The UN agency recorded some 14,000 Honduran "refugees or asylum seekers" in 2014. Last year, there were more than 300,000, mainly in the United States or Mexico.

Together, those displaced internally and those seeking refuge abroad total "more than half a million, out of a population of ten million" inhabitants, or five percent of the population, said Lo.

She said a 2023 law passed to prevent internal displacement and protect those who had been forced to relocate, was a positive step.

To combat gang activity, authorities imposed a state of emergency in December 2022, allowing arrests without a warrant.

Under this measure, the leftist government of President Xiomara Castro deployed thousands of police and military personnel across the country.

Security Minister Gustavo Sanchez said 12,000 weapons have been seized and 4,500 narcos and gang members arrested.

But police raids are also causing forced displacement.

"The state of emergency has had a significant impact on forced displacement. We have identified cases where, due to constant searches by the national police, people are being forced to leave their homes," said Reyes.