There were 600 fewer homicides in Honduras as compared to the same period last year, President Juan Orlando Hernández announced on Monday. In the first semester of 2014, there were 2,893 murders in the small Central American country, which is home to 8.2 million inhabitants.
Honduras averaged about 19 murders a day in 2013, but President Hernández remained hopeful that the drop in the rate would become a pattern for the embattled country. He blamed the complexities of organized crime and security issues for the elevated number of homicides, and emphasized that patterns and trends will not become apparent to the general populace for several years, as was the case in Colombia and Guatemala. An International Crisis Group report released in June identified the 2009 coup d’état that deposed former President Manuela Zelaya as a primary cause in the increase in drug-related crime in the country.
The high rates of violence contributed to Honduras’ low score in the 2014 Social Inclusion Index where it ranked sixteenth out of 17 countries, behind El Salvador and Paraguay. Social exclusion and the lack of citizen security have been highlighted as two of the primary drivers in the unaccompanied minor crisis at the border.
