Prison gang stages riot

La Ceiba, Honduras

Eighty-six inmates died this week in a prison riot in La Ceiba, a town on the Caribbean coast of Honduras. Most of the dead belonged to a gang—Mara 18—whose members tried to take over El Porvenir prison. About 100 of the so-called maras, armed with guns and knives, attacked inmates not loyal to the gang. Hundreds of regular prisoners fought back with weapons of their own, including smuggled hand grenades. The explosions started fires that quickly engulfed a large section of the prison, which houses 1,500 men. El Porvenir was filled with “screams of pain and terror,” one inmate said. “Everybody was fighting against everybody.” Outside, Hondurans said they were fed up with gangs. “We should just kill them all,” one man said.