By Gustavo Palencia
TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) – On Sunday, in their final telephone conversation, Paola Yamileth told her cousin she feared for her life: “I feel death here and I am afraid they are going to kill me.”
Two days after that call, Paola, 26, and her mother, Belinda, 46, were among the at least 46 women killed in a violent clash between gangs at the Honduran prison where they were both incarcerated.
Marlene Hernandez, Paola’s cousin, recalled the phone call as she stood outside an overrun morgue in Honduras’ capital city, Tegucigalpa, on Wednesday.
Aida Portillo, Belinda’s aunt, identified their bodies at the morgue.
Both had been shot, she said.
Portillo and Hernandez were among dozens of distraught relatives who gathered in the street in front of the morgue seeking information on loved ones, hoping their worst fears would not be confirmed.
“I did not think it could be true,” Portillo said. “This situation is hard for the whole family.”
Some families will have to wait longer for closure. A spokesperson for the public prosecutor’s office said DNA tests needed to identify bodies burned in the prison could take three weeks.
Police said Tuesday’s deadly incident began when inmates belonging to the notorious Barrio 18 gang opened fire on members of rival gang Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13).
Portillo did not say whether her loved ones were gang-affiliated, but told Reuters they had both been convicted on drug dealing charges.
Mother Belinda was about one year in to a seven-year sentence, while daughter Paola was just a few months into a six-year sentence.
Before their arrests, the two lived separately in El Reparto, a poor neighborhood on the hilly outskirts of Tegucigalpa where gangs like Barrio 18 and MS-13 command more power than authorities.
Tuesday’s explosion of violence came six months into a security crackdown in Honduras in which the government has suspended some constitutional rights and allowed security forces to detain people who they consider are associated with crime.
The Central American nation has a history of deadly prison incidents, with 18 inmates reportedly killed in a gang fight in a penitentiary in 2019, and more than 350 dying in a fire in 2012.
“We knew that prisons in Honduras are dangerous, but I never thought that they would die serving their sentences and in that way,” said Portillo.
(Reporting by Gustavo Palencia; Writing by Brendan O’Boyle; Editing by David Gregorio)
