Honduras Imposes Curfew After Night Of Violence

The president of Honduras has declared an immediate curfew in a town where 13 people were shot dead on Saturday.

Xiomara Castro described the killings in a pool hall in Choloma as a “brutal and ruthless terrorist attack”.

The victims, who were at a birthday party, were 12 men and one woman.

Separate murders in the Northern Sula valley region brought Saturday’s death toll to at least 20, authorities said, and are thought to be linked to drug-trafficking gangs.

The curfew comes in from 21:00 local time (04:00 bst) to 04:00 from Sunday and will run for at least 15 days.

It will be extended to nearby San Pedro Sula – the central American country’s second-largest city – on 4 July.

Ms Castro said the measures were being put in place in response to “the brutal and ruthless terrorist attack by hired killers trained and directed by drug lords” in the sula valley.

The shooting came a week after at least 46 women were killed in gang violence as part of a prison riot near the capital Tegucigalpa.

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The Honduran government has announced curfews in two northern cities after more than 20 people were killed overnight in separate attacks.

The restrictions include a 15-day curfew in Choloma between 9 pm and 4 am, effective immediately, and another in San Pedro Sula, effective July 4th.

A thousand police and military personnel have been deployed to the Sula Valley in the north of the country. Honduras has been seeing escalating violence recently.

Heavily armed men opened fire on Saturday night in a billiards hall in a neighborhood in the northern manufacturing city of Choloma.

They killed 13 people and seriously wounded another. And across the Sula Valley zone, local police say at least 11 other murders had taken place on Saturday in separate episodes.

Honduras has long been suffering from violence, mostly gang and drug related.