This archive report was first published on 23 December 2019.
At least 18 people were killed in a violent clash between prisoners at a jail in central Honduras on Sunday afternoon, according to a military spokesman.
The incident occurred at El Porvenir prison, located north of the capital Tegucigalpa, and involved the use of firearms, knives, and machetes, the spokesman said.
The violence came just two days after another 18 inmates died in a separate facility in the northern port town of Tela, where 16 others were wounded.
The recent wave of prison killings has prompted Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez to take drastic measures, including ordering the army and police to take full control of the country's 27 prisons, which are severely overcrowded with over 21,000 inmates.
On Tuesday, Hernandez ordered the military to deploy in 18 penal centers identified as 'high risk,' following the killings of five members of the feared gang Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) by a fellow detainee at the high-security prison in La Tolva on December 14.
Just a day before, the warden of El Pozo prison, Pedro Idelfonso Armas, was shot dead in the south of the country.
Honduras has been plagued by drug trafficking, gangs, poverty, and corruption, with one of the highest homicide rates in the world outside areas of armed conflict, registering 41.2 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2018.
