Honduras investigates murders of 1,300 street children

Honduras, shamed by international publicity over nearly 1,300 child murders in four years, will launch a special security force to tackle street violence and investigate the unsolved deaths. Oscar Alvarez, the Honduran Security Minister, said: "We are going to clear up once and for all who is carrying out these killings of children and young people."

The force will be in addition to the 6,000 police officers put on the street by President Ricardo Maduro. The President had been elected on a "zero tolerance" pledge aimed at rooting out crime, but local non-government organisations had despaired at their slow pace of solving murders. No killer has been identified in at least 60 per cent of child murders cases that plague one of Central America's most destitute countries.

Critics repeatedly accuse Honduran police of practising an unofficial "social cleansing" policy against the poor, because at least a tenth of these victims, all young and homeless, were allegedly shot on the pavement by soldiers or policemen. Police say teenage gangs overrun the capital and kill off one another, leaving officials to deal with the corpses. As economic refugees who fled the chaos of Hurricane Mitch, many of these youngsters went to the United States. They brought back gang culture when they were deported.

Andres Pavon, president of the committee for the defence of human rights in Honduras asked: "How is it possible that in this country armed people kill children and young people daily and the security forces don't capture anyone and don't know who the executioners are?"

Last year, a United Nations human rights investigator, Asma Jahangir, said police had been involved in the killings. Twelve officers have been charged. Casa Alianza, a children's rights charity in America, estimates 20,000 children aged between four and 18 sleep rough on the streets of the capital, Tegucigalpa, and other cities. They are shot in the streets where they lie or taken in cars to be killed and dumped.

Pressure was brought on the Maduro administration after Casa Alianza and Cejil, the centre for justice and international law, took six test cases against the Honduran government before the inter-American commission on human rights in Washington. The surviving families of some victims are seeking compensation.

After years of local delays, the international court is looking into the double murder of Oscar Daniel Medina Cortes, 15, and Jose Luis Hernandez, 14, who were cycling through a children's park in January 1998. A blue pick-up truck with five heavily armed men idled beside the laughing boys in El Progreso. The gunmen tossed the two children into the back of their pick-up, hurled their bicycles on top of them and sped away. Several witnesses recognised at least two abductors as members of the local general directorate of criminal investigation, known by its Spanish initials as the DGIC.

That was the last time the boys were seen alive. The next morning, they were found on the road, tortured and mutilated. Family members collected the remains after waiting in vain for the investigating authorities to arrive.

Four years on, witnesses still have not been called to say what they know about the kidnap and murder of the church-going teenager and his friend, who helped his mother to run a juice bar. The DGIC in Honduras was responsible for the investigation.