by: Delisa Morris Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

San Pedro Sula, Honduras – The United States has seen a surge in immigration of children from Honduras recently.  Juan Hernandez, president of Honduras, believes that the U.S. drug policy is to blame.  “The root cause is that the United States and Columbia carried out big operations in the fight against drugs, then Mexico did it”, stated Hernandez.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security deported 59 Hondurans this week all women and children, who migrated to the country illegally.  They had all been held in a detention facility in New Mexico.  The migrants were returned by plane to San Pedro Sula, known as the murder capital of the world.

There is a ceaseless river of bodies flowing through the morgue in San Pedro Sula is a testament to one reason so many people leave Honduras.  Honduras is a country rampant with crime and little economic opportunity.

A week ago a 13-year-old girl’s throat was slit ear to ear, and her body was found in a shallow grave in a backyard.  The circumstances of her death are still under investigation.  Some bodies are riddled with bullets; in one case 72-bullet-wounds, while others are bound by their hands and feet and strangled.

The city is covered with gang activity and each body brought into the morgue tells of brutality and violence.

From January to July, the city experienced over 538 homicides, and in at least 423 a gun was used.  In May, the worst month, the body tally was about nine per day.

Families are not allowed to grieve to grieve in peace, in fact, the mere act of claiming a body or attending a funeral can make people there a target for gang members who stalk the morgue and cemetery looking for their next victim.  Right now at least forty-eight bodies are unclaimed at the morgue, and after 30 days, they’ll be buried in the city’s public cemetery.  The morgue keeps DNA, dental records and fingerprints are retained for the day when someone shows up or a killer caught.

Many Hondurans who live in the roughest neighborhoods leave Honduras because they don’t have any other option.

The city’s Director of Forensic Medicine, Hector Hernandez, believes many families haven’t claimed their loved ones’ bodies because they believe their family members have migrated.

Several of the women deported this week have mixed emotions about failing to stay in the United States, and they now worry about paying back the thousands of dollars they borrowed to travel north.  “Part of my heart stayed in the U.S. because I missed a chance to get ahead in life,” said Isabel Rodriguez, who was deported along with her two young children.

 

For more information please see:

ABC News –59 Migrants Deported From US Arrive in Honduras – July 18, 2014Reuters – U.S. says Deportation of Honduran Children a Warning to Illegal Migrants – July 15, 2014

CNN – In Morgue, Clues to Why People Leave Violence-Plagued Honduras – July 16, 2014

Time – Honduras President: The War on Drugs is Causing the U.S. Immigration Problem – July 15, 2014