Honduras

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Hondurans on Sunday will vote to choose candidates for November elections to replace outgoing President Juan Orlando Hernandez, whose eight years in power have been increasingly mired by corruption allegations.

The winning candidates in the primaries will compete in Nov. 28 elections to succeed the two-term president. Hernandez has denied corruption accusations, including by prosecutors in a U.S. trial that he worked with drug traffickers to move large quantities of cocaine into the United States.

TEGUCIGALPA, Jan 2 (NNN-Xinhua) — The Honduran police said 18 people were killed in several violent incidents during New Year’s Eve celebrations.

According to Deputy Inspector of the National Police Rigoberto Rodriguez, the figure was lower than 2019, when 24 homicides were reported.

The official also said that in 2020, there were a total of 3,482 violence-related deaths, while in 2019, 4,082 deaths were reported.

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (AP) — At a shelter in this northern Honduran city, Lilian Gabriela Santos Sarmiento says back-to-back hurricanes that hit with devastating fury this month have overturned her life. Her home in what was once a pretty neighborhood in nearby La Lima was destroyed by flooding.

The 29-year-old woman who never finished middle school had managed to build a life for herself, most recently cleaning COVID-19 wards at a local hospital. Now, having lost everything, she says she sees no future in Honduras at her age and with her level of education.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Hurricane Iota battered Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast and flooded some stretches of neighboring Honduras that were still under water from Hurricane Eta two weeks earlier, leaving authorities struggling to assess damage after communications were knocked out in some areas.

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (AP) — As the remnants of Hurricane Eta moved back over Caribbean waters, governments in Central America worked to tally the displaced and dead, and recover bodies from landslides and flooding that claimed dozens of lives from Guatemala to Panama.

It will be days before the true toll of Eta is known. Its torrential rains battered economies already strangled by the COVID-19 pandemic, took all from those who had little and laid bare the shortcomings of governments unable to aid their citizens and pleading for international assistance.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Eta is moving over Honduras as a weakened tropical depression but still bringing the heavy rains that have caused deadly landslides while drenching the country’s east and the north of neighboring Nicaragua.

TEGUCIGALPA, Jan 28 (NNN-Prensa Latina) — The number of migrants returned to Honduras by various means from Mexico and Guatemala this year exceeds 5,000, the National Institute of Migration reported.

The coordinator of the delegations, Victor Vega, explained that every day up to four airplanes of the Federal Police of that country arrive from Mexico with more than 200 Hondurans each.

By land, almost eight buses arrive daily through the customs office in Corinto, from Mexico and Guatemala, added the official.

Tegucigalpa, Dec 23 (AFP/PTI) Eighteen people were killed in Sunday afternoon violence between prisoners at a jail in central Honduras, less than two days after another 18 died in violence at a separate facility, a military spokesman told local media.

The spokesman for the combined national security force known as Fusina released a list of names of the 18 dead and two injured, saying that "firearms, knives and machetes" were used in the clash in El Porvenir prison north of the capital Tegucigalpa.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Inmates, some with firearms, rioted at a prison in Honduras on Friday, killing at least 18 people and injuring 16 others, authorities said.

The violence, which occurred in Tela in the Atlántida region on the Caribbean coast, came several days after Honduras declared a state of emergency in its prison system. The measure suspended civilian leaders in prisons and replaced them with a special commission led by military and police officers.

COMAYAGUA, Honduras (AP) — The 3-year-old girl traveled for weeks cradled in her father’s arms, as he set out to seek asylum in the United States. Now she won’t even look at him.

After being forcibly separated at the border by government officials, sexually abused in U.S. foster care and deported, the once bright and beaming girl arrived back in Honduras withdrawn, anxious and angry, convinced her father abandoned her.

He fears their bond is forever broken.