Guns, grenades and deadly riots: The struggle for control of some of Central America’s most notorious prisons

It is one of the deadliest outbreaks of violence Honduras has faced within its long-troubled prison system.

It was a riot sparked when armed members of the Barrio 18 gang held back guards and attacked members of the rival Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), police said. The death toll in the country's only dedicated women's prison in Támara, near Tegucigalpa, the capital, had reached 46 by Wednesday, according to the public prosecutor's office.

The gang members sprayed their rivals with gunfire, hacked them with machetes and then apparently locked survivors in their cells and doused them with flammable liquid, according to Juan Lopez Rochez, the chief of operations for the country's National Police. "A group of armed people went to the cellblock of a rival gang, locked the doors, opened fire on those inside and apparently — this is still under investigation — used some kind of oil to set fire to them," he added.

The intensity of the fire is said to have left the walls of the cells blackened and beds reduced to twisted heaps of metal. Authorities are identifying prisoners’ remains, many of which were “charred or reduced” to ash, according to Yuri Mora, spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office.

The amount of weaponry found in the prison after the riot was extensive: 18 pistols, an assault rifle, two machine pistols and two grenades — all of which were smuggled into the prison. "Obviously, there must have been human failures," Lopez Rochez said. "We are investigating all the employees at the center."

Such violence is an issue that has plagued the Honduras prison system for two decades and beyond – with the National Commissioner for Human Rights in Honduras calling on authorities to step up their efforts to try and contain gangs, who control many of the country’s 26 prisons and detention centres. They have noted that more 1,000 people have been killed in prison violence since 2003.

This incident follows a pattern that has been seen in institutions across the nation at various points. Sandra Rodriguez Vargas, the assistant commissioner for Honduras’ prison system, said the attackers “removed” guards at the facility – none appeared to have been injured – at around 8am on Tuesday and then opened the gates to an adjoining cell block and began massacring the women there. The facility is said to hold about 900 inmates.

President Xiomara Castro said Tuesday’s riot was “planned by maras [street gangs] with the knowledge and acquiescence of security authorities”. Ms Castro pledged to take “drastic measures”.

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Barrio 18 and MS-13 are two of Central America’s most notorious criminal organisations, and there were suggestions that members of one gang had been taunting their rivals, who then set fire to the mattresses in the cell holding those taunting them.

Family members suggested that there were ample warnings ahead of the tragedy, according to Johanna Paola Soriano Euceda, who spoke to the Associated Press outside the mortuary in Tegucigalpa, waiting for news about her mother, Maribel Euceda, and sister, Karla Soriano. Both were on trial for drug trafficking but were held in the same area as convicted prisoners.

Ms Soriano Euceda said they had told her on Sunday that “they [Barrio 18 members] were out of control, they were fighting with them all the time. That was the last time we talked”.

Another woman, who did not want to give her name for fear of reprisals, told AP that she was waiting for news about a friend. “She told me the last time I saw her on Sunday that the (Barrio) 18 people had threatened them, that they were going to kill them if they didn’t turn over a relative,” she said.

Gangs sometimes demand victims “turn over” a friend or relative by giving the gang their name, address and description, so that enforcers can later find and kidnap, rob or kill them.

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How did we get here? Gangs wield broad control inside the country’s prisons, where inmates often set their own rules and sell prohibited goods. They are also able to smuggle in guns and other weapons, a recurring problem that yields plenty of violence. This is exacerbated by persistent overcrowding, The official capacity is around 13,000 prisoners across the facilities countywide – the occupancy level in October 2022, according to official statistics, is about 150 per cent. And it has been above 200 per cent at points in recent years.

The list of major incidents is long and bloody. In 2003, more than 60 people were left dead at El Porvenir prison after a riot involving members Barrio 18 and members of other gangs, which also involved fires being set. In the aftermath, police seized 12 assault rifles, three grenades and three pistols. Prisoners also used steel pipes and clubs.

In 2004, a fire at a prison in San Pedro Sula about 100 miles north of the capital killed more than 100 inmates. The worst prison disaster in a century also occurred in Honduras, in 2012 at the Comayagua penitentiary, where 361 inmates died in a fire. Most of the victims had never been charged or convicted of a crime. With a significant proportion of Honduras's prison population being held in pre-trial detention.

Other incidents of note include nine prisons being killed with machetes and knives in San Pedro Sula in 2008 and more than a decade later In late 2019, nearly 40 gang members were killed in clashes at two all-male prisons over the same weekend.

Around 6 per cent of the country's prison population is female, with the violence that has been a mainstay of male prisons having been relatively rare. Although authorities noted that alleged Barrio 18 gang members were strangled by cellmates in August 2020.

A 2021 report by Human Rights Watch noted “overcrowding, inadequate nutrition, poor sanitation, beatings, intra-gang violence, and detainee killings are endemic in prisons”.

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The influx of weapons has only aided the number of targeted killings, massacres and deadly riots. Beyond those examples already mentioned, In Tamara National Penitentiary in 2020, six AK-47s, five automatic pistols and two grenades were found – as well as the homemade tubes created for their possible launch.

San Pedro Sula prison is a name you will have also seen dotted throughout this report, it is one of the facilities that has been closed or marked for phasing out, but a report from 2013 highlights just how much control gangs can have.

The prison had a painted yellow mark on the ground separating the inmates from the guards, it was called “the line of death,” according to a report from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The prison guards knew that they “must not cross into the yard without the authorisation of the inmates, while the inmates refuse to leave the external perimeter in police custody,” the report said. There were two padlocks on the prison gate, the report says. The guards lock the outside, and the inmates lock the inside and the situation was clear according to one prison official, guards had “no power to change anything”.

According to the report, there are “barbers’ shops, cafeterias, bakeries, sales of fruit and food of all kinds, sales of medications and cloth, tailoring workshops, a cobbler’s shop, a leather workshop, carpentry, a cabinetmaker’s workshop, crafts, manufacture of mirrors, billiard tables, games tables and many soft drink dispensing machines.”

It is clear that the situation across Honduras has not changed anywhere near as much as authorities would like since that report. A commission, formed earlier this year, has raided prisons to wrest control from powerful gangs and weed out crooked security guards, while various states of emergency – extended multiple times – have given officials more power over detained gang members.

The deadly riot on Tuesday was “the product of a direct attack by organised crime against the actions that we are deliberately taking,” Ms Villanueva told reporters. “We will not back down,” she said.

The Honduran president, Ms Castro, replaced security minister Ramon Antonio Sabillon with national police head Gustavo Sanchez late on Tuesday, shifting Mr Sabillon to the foreign service. She has promised more measures to "combat organised crime and dismantle the boycott against security fostered from inside prisons."

The latest violence will increase pressure on Ms Castro to emulate the drastic zero-tolerance prisons set in up in neighbouring El Salvador. That crackdown has caused a significant drop in the murder rate, but some of the tens of thousands imprisoned have been so for simply from anonymous tip-offs and other human rights violations. However, it has also proved immensely popular in a country long terrorised by the street gangs like MS-13.

Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report