Honduras military takes over prisons, force inmates to sit half naked in rows
Honduran armed forces have taken control of the country’s troubled prison system a week after a gang riot killed 46 women.
Military police on Monday swept prisons it had taken over in the towns of Támara and La Tolva, removing hundreds of prisoners from their cells and leading them into courtyards.
Footage released by the government showed male inmates sitting half-naked on the floor with their hands covering their heads and necks at Francisco Morazan National Penitentiary.
Inmates of the Women’s Center for Social Adaptation, a women-only prison, the only one in the Central American nation, were also forced from their cells and sat in the courtyard with their hands over their necks, but the female military officers allowed them in to keep their shirts on.
The footage was reminiscent of El Salvador’s crackdown on gang violence, when prisoners were lined up in formation during the opening of a new prison in February.
Inmates at a prison in Támara, Honduras, were rounded up and forced to sit half-naked in the courtyard after military police seized control of the nation’s prison system on Monday. The move was ordered by President Xiomara Castro almost a week after 46 inmates were massacred at the country’s only prison for women, also located in Támara.
Honduran soldiers guard an entrance to the Women’s Center for Social Adaptation in the northwestern city of Támara last Tuesday after 46 inmates were killed in a riot led by members of the Barrio 18 gang
As part of the Honduran government’s Operation Faith and Hope, military police searched the cell blocks controlled by the Barrio 18 gang in Támara Prison and found a cache of ammunition, rifles, rifles and grenades.
“Corruption in prisons is over,” Colonel Fernando Muñoz of the military police said at a press conference. “We are going to check and there will be no calls here to order extortions or executions.”
“Our mission is to defeat organized crime within prisons and we (also) go after the intellectual authors operating from the outside,” Defense Minister Jose Manuel Zelaya said in a tweet.
The full takeover comes after female inmates, who are members of the Barrio 18 gang, smuggled firearms, machetes and a flammable liquid into the women’s prison in Támara last Tuesday.
Inmates at Honduras’ only women’s prison line up just before a full-scale search of the facility in the city of Támara took place on Monday.
Members of the military police remove prisoners from the yard of a prison in Támara, Honduras after the military takes control of prisons across the country
As part of Operation Faith and Hope, military police seized a cache of firearms, ammunition, drugs, cell phones and other items during a search of Francisco Morazan National Penitentiary in Támara, Honduras, on Monday.
A grenade was found Monday by military police during a full search of the cell blocks of a men’s prison in Támara, Honduras.
The suspects managed to disarm the guards and broke into one of the cell blocks housing members of their main rival, the MS-13, and launched an attack.
The gang shot and hacked their victims before locking and burning their cells.
In response to the massacre, leftist President Xiomara Castro imposed strict measures to regain control of all prisons by putting the military police in charge and gave them a year to hire and train new guards.
The country’s penitentiary system consists of 26 prisons with approximately 20,000 inmates. According to the United Nations, prisons are 34.2 percent overcapacity.
Military police officers guard prisoners at a Honduran prison, one of 26 in the country now under military surveillance
A prisoner is escorted through Hondura’s only women’s prison in the municipality of Támara
Several hundred male inmates lined up half-naked Monday in the courtyard of the Francisco Morazan National Penitentiary in Támara, Honduras.
Hundreds of weapons and rifles are displayed on the grounds of the Francisco Morazan National Penitentiary in Támara, Honduras, after the military took control of security
At least 2,000 members were forced to sit half-naked in February at the Terrorism Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador.
Támara Prison is designed to hold 2,500 inmates, but 4,200 are crammed into its 12 cellblocks largely controlled by the Barrio 18 gang.
According to Insight Crime, the tragedy could have been prevented after inmates complained about the prison’s lack of security.
In April, the Washington-based think tank visited the prison and granted access to 30 inmates.
“We’re scared, we’re not sleeping. This prison is like a time bomb,” one of them said.
Another inmate who was once a member of the MS-13 was injured during a fight between the MS-13 and Barrio 18 gang members witnessed by the Insight Crime team of investigators.
‘[The authorities] don’t care about this prison,’ she said. ‘We have elderly people here, people in wheelchairs and pregnant women. If something happens, how are they going to flee?’