At least ten people—including women and children—were killed in a shootout between rival drug gangs in northeastern Honduras on Tuesday. The total death toll in the rural La Mosquita region on Honduras’ Atlantic coast could be as high as 16 according to local authorities, adding to the over 3,000 homicides reported in the first six months of 2013.
Honduras has the highest per capita homicide rate in the world, with 86 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2011. Part of Central America’s Northern Triangle region, the country has seen an increase in violence tied to drug trafficking—specifically cocaine smuggled from South America to the United States. Along with increased narcotrafficking, a combination of high crime rates—which increased substantially since the 2009 coup that ousted then-President Manuel Zelaya—along with an underfunded and overworked police force have contributed to the country’s violence.
But the violence also correlates with very low levels of social inclusion. The recently released 2013 AQ Social Inclusion Index found Honduras to have the second lowest level of social inclusion among the 16 Western Hemisphere countries ranked in the Index. At the same time, its homicide rate was worse than any other country ranked. Poverty levels are high and access to formal jobs is limited, but the Index concluded that “Hondurans feel more personally empowered than many in the region.”
