Church in Honduras calls on government to consider changing strategy amid wave of violence

ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 1, 2023 / 09:00 am

The Honduran Bishops’ Conference called on the country’s government to consider changing its security strategy in the midst of a wave of violence that has intensified and worsened in recent days.

The bishops also lamented that the violence in the country has been going on for years.

“We share our deep sorrow that so many families are experiencing because of the loss of their loved ones, as well as those who feel threatened, for whom we express our fraternal closeness and our prayers,” they said.

Amid increasing violence, the government of President Xiomara Castro de Zelaya announced a second stage of its “National Security Plan ‘Solution Against Crime.’”

Part of the plan includes reorganizing the prisons, which has drawn criticism from human rights organizations.

Among recent episodes of violence, more than 40 women inmates were killed on June 20 in a confrontation between rival gangs inside the Women’s Center for Social Readaptation (CEFAS) near the capital Tegucigalpa.

On June 24, armed men entered a billiards hall in the municipality of Choloma in northern Honduras and killed 13 people.

For the Honduran bishops, “one thing is clear” about the government’s security efforts: “They are not yielding the hoped-for results.”

“When thinking about so many deaths, it’s not just about the numbers: These are human lives, and many of them are very young children,” the prelates said.

“The spiral of violence we are suffering from is the result of years of injustice, systematic corruption, and the indifference with which the roots of the problem has been viewed,” the bishops’ conference pointed out.

“Violence exacerbates extreme poverty and nullifies hopes of finding a lasting solution,” the bishops said, while calling on citizens to assume “their own duties and commitments in society, thus contributing to the welfare and progress of the country in a climate of the true rule of law sustained in the pursuit of the common good.”

“Now more than ever we need to be united,” they stressed.

Finally, the bishops encouraged the faithful “to turn our gaze to the Most Holy Virgin of Suyapa, mother of Honduras, begging her to help hearts open up to reconciliation and make a place for fraternal coexistence, in all areas of social life, including inside the prisons.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.