Central America
Gang shootout leaves at least five dead in Honduran prison
AFP
Rival gangs staged a gunfight Thursday in a maximum security prison in Honduras, leaving at least five people dead, authorities said.
Authorities have not been able to enter the prison because the situation is still too dangerous, said Yuri Mora, a spokesman for the justice department.
The gunfight between members of the Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha street gangs was unfolding in the prison in La Tolva, 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of the capital Tegucigalpa.
A hospital in the capital said it had admitted 15 wounded people from the prison.
Hundreds of distraught relatives of prisoners gathered at the hospital and outside the prison seeking information on their loved ones, press reports said.
On social media, audio of gunfire and explosions inside the prison circulated.
Members of Barrio 18 and MS-13 control large areas on the outskirts of some cities in Honduras and even rural areas, and fight each other over territory for drug trafficking, weapons, auto theft and other crimes, police say.
The country’s 28 overcrowded prisons housing some 22,000 people have been described by experts as being essentially crime schools, from which murder, extortion, kidnappings and other crimes are ordered, allegedly with help from prison staff.
The country’s worst prison tragedy came in 2012 when a fire killed 362 people at a prison in Comayagua, 50 km north of Tegucigalpa.
The government has built three new prisons including the one in La Tolva in an effort to ease overcrowding in the poor Central American country’s aging and decrepit penal facilities.
Central America
El Salvador to host World Cup qualifiers vs. Guatemala and Panama at Estadio Cuscatlán
El Salvador’s national football team will host its final round World Cup qualifying matches against Guatemala and Panama at Estadio Cuscatlán, the honorary president of the National Sports Institute (INDES), Yamil Bukele, announced Thursday via a statement on his X account.
The official explained that this decision comes after the American rock band Guns N’ Roses, originally scheduled to perform at Estadio Cuscatlán on Saturday, October 4, will now hold their concert at Estadio Jorge “El Mágico” González. This change allows both of La Selecta’s qualifying matches to be played at the “Coloso de Monserrat.”
“After a series of efforts and in response to popular demand, we are pleased to announce that our senior national team’s CONCACAF World Cup qualifying matches next October (Oct. 10 vs. Panama and Oct. 14 vs. Guatemala) will take place at Estadio Cuscatlán,” the statement reads.
Bukele also thanked the event promoters and the band for agreeing to the stadium change. “We sincerely thank Guns N’ Roses and StarTicket for agreeing to move the concert originally scheduled for October 4 at Estadio Cuscatlán,” the statement adds.
Additionally, Bukele expressed gratitude to the FESFUT Regularization Commission for their efforts with CONCACAF to make this possible, and he urged fans to stay tuned to official channels to purchase tickets and support La Selecta in their World Cup qualifying campaign.
Central America
Honduran president Xiomara Castro suspends activities due to influenza
Honduran President Xiomara Castro announced on Thursday that she has “temporarily” suspended her public activities due to a severe influenza virus.
“A strong influenza virus requires me to rest, trusting that I will be fully recovered for the grand celebration of our National Independence Day” next Monday, Castro stated on the social media platform X.
The president had planned to participate in several inaugurations across the northern, central, and eastern regions of the country throughout the week. She added that “these events will be rescheduled for new dates.”
Central America
Nicaragua’s government expels bishops, priests, and nuns in religious persecution
At least 261 religious figures, including the president of the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference, Carlos Enrique Herrera, have been expelled as part of the persecution by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo’s regime against the Catholic Church, reported the NGO Colectivo Nicaragua Nunca Más in its report Faith Under Fire.
The report details that among those expelled are bishops Silvio Báez, Rolando Álvarez, Isidoro Mora, as well as the Apostolic Nuncio in Managua, Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, along with approximately 140 priests, over 90 nuns, ten seminarians, and three deacons from different dioceses in the country.
“Since the expulsion of Nuncio Sommertag in March 2022, relations between Nicaragua and the Vatican have significantly deteriorated,” the NGO noted.
The report also documents the closure of 5,609 non-profit organizations, of which 1,294 were religious, including churches, universities, schools, clinics, and humanitarian organizations. Most of these had their assets confiscated by the Sandinista government. Additionally, the telecommunications regulator TELCOR shut down 54 media outlets, including 22 religious radio stations and TV channels.
Repression has extended to other religious denominations, with forced disappearances and criminalization of evangelical pastors, control over temples, media censorship, fiscal pressure, property confiscation, and the cancellation of legal status for the Moravian Church. Pastor Rudy Palacios remains in detention as part of this pattern of persecution.
The NGO emphasized that churches, especially the Catholic Church, played a key role in the 2018 national dialogue, denouncing abuses and providing refuge to injured protesters, which fueled the government’s hostility.
In 2023, Pope Francis described Ortega’s regime as a “blatant dictatorship”, to which the Nicaraguan president responded by dissolving the Society of Jesus and labeling the Church as a “mafia” and “anti-democratic.”
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