He grasped Ms. Hernandezs hair, yanked her head back and put his machete to her throat. Yes, a bullet had shattered her cranium. His hair and beard had grown long. People who work in the transport industry are often seen as easy targets by the gangs. The administration has since built on those restrictions, blocking Central American asylum seekers from waiting in the United States for their cases through a program known as Remain in Mexico and then barring them from accessing the asylum system altogether by requiring them to first seek protection in a country theyd traveled through. His neighborhood, like many in the region, developed around clothing factories whose exploitive labor practices contribute to a level of economic disparity not seen in the United States. . Government workers who dont do their jobs should be fired; those on the take should be fired. La cooperacin espaola, en colaboracin con la Cruz Roja, activ ayudas por valor de 478 mil 308 euros, destinadas a Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador y Honduras para frenar las consecuencias socieconmicas de la COVID-19. We will follow your case and help you. But Ms. Castellano doesnt trust the authorities to do anything. Ms. Hernndez was a 28-year-old agent for the Agencia Tcnica de. Clothing store. The morgue leaders announced that month that Ms. Hernndez had been murdered. But in his death, his life has grown larger, becoming the story of a legend in Honduran hip-hop. When they arrive for their appointments at MSF clinics, patients are asked to complete an anonymous questionnaire about their displacement status. Most of her left foot was gone. The transportation industry in Honduras, as in other Central American countries, is one of quick money and entirely cash, making it a prime target. The rot starts at the top, with Hondurass president, Juan Orlando Hernndez. The reception room at the airport has the false cheer of government offices everywhereits yellow walls lined with photographs showing off the countrys progress: thriving coffee plantations, construction projects, ribbon-cutting ceremonies. Forensic Medicine has the ability to lift fingerprints from the nylon bags in which women are so often disposed, but the person who would do the test cannot recall police investigators ever requesting one. It was pouring rain but they couldnt afford to wait for morning; police officers were arriving, and the migrants were afraid of being detained. Do I have to bring you a corpse for you to actually do your job? her sister said to them. But torture and mutilation arent as routine an aspect of these killings as they are for women. The units limited resources, paired with the reluctance of witnesses to come forward, make for a near-impossible task. Choloma map. In spring 2017 MSF teams began supporting a local Ministry of Health clinic in Choloma that was struggling with budget and staff limitations. Why dont they do their work and actually investigate? she demanded. Now I live with my son alone., Ilmas son, now an adult, does accounting work for a factory in Tegucigalpa. The prosecutors office blamed this largely on family members being afraid to testify in a place where you can buy a hit on a person for $50 and no one believes the police can or will protect them. Villanuevas neighborhood is a prime example, she said. Women were afraid to talk, to express themselves, Ms. Martinez said. CHOLOMA, HONDURAS The murder of Sherill Yubissa Hernndez Manca explains why Central American women are fleeing north. 95. from $75/night. Most neighborhoods are controlled by gangs or criminal organizations 18th Street, MS-13 or La Rumba, named after a disco in Cholomas most troubled area, Lpez Arellano. After the war, the United States declared never again and became a leader in the modern-day refugee movement. In its advisory about Honduras, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees recommended that countries conducting asylum screenings consider both transport workers and witnesses of violent crimes who were targeted by gangs as potential refugees. But the family is still faced with an impossible choice, one familiar to many people in Honduras: Stay and risk your life at home, or risk your life on the move, gambling on a better future. Despite the risks, she has considered making the journey north to build a new life in the United States. She is buried under an almond tree in a cemetery near the apartment of her mother, Norma Adel Carranza. As a result, most advances for abused women, Virginia Marta Velsquez, one of the founders of the Lpez Arellano's women's group. Its difficult to live in Nueva Capital, she says. Elena Garcia, who is 38, asked me not to use her full name. Many blame the rise of organized crime, which flourished in the wake of civil wars in the region, . He was a star. Choloma Localisation : Country Honduras, Department Corts. He was shot while driving his mototaxi a dangerous occupation in neighborhoods under gang control. After his relatives picked him up, their SUV was followed until they made a quick stop at a store, according to video footage uncovered by Galeass investigation. They drove minibuses for his small, family-owned business, Diaz Zavala said. Ms. Hercules shook with anger when she told me that man is free, he will kill us all, and the authorities will do nothing. When I spoke with her this week, she said she saw him again in February. Choloma, Corts, Honduras IT Implementation Analyst GRUPO ELCATEX ago. MoneyGram en Choloma (Honduras) MoneyGram se ha convertido hoy en da en una de las empresas mas usadas para enviar o recibir giros internacionales. But almost no one is actually charged with femicide. The country is roughly the size of Pennsylvania, and gangs and other criminal organizations have networks of surveillance and territorial control. The mother will give birth in one month. One night, a woman at La Rumbas disco said it was nice but another club was nicer. Begging food from strangers! He locked his wife inside and ordered her, their 3-year-old son, and their 6- and 7-year-old daughters to their knees. She told me what happened to one of her friends three years ago, after she went to the police, covered in bruises. That leaves people who work industries vulnerable to gang extortion with few options. Two years ago, a Choloma police officer who was also working as a sicario killed a 20-year-old woman who had refused a narcos advances. I am in constant fear, Ms. Garcia said. Please upgrade your browser. Everyone in Choloma knows about the woman who was skinned alive here in June 2017. +504 9668-4453. Mototaxis wobble and weave their way along these streets to help residents get to and from their homes. Hence, we estimate that at least half of the 500,000 illicit arms that circulate in Honduras transit through Corts, making arms trafficking a lucrative criminal economy in the department. Coca cola sign San pedro sula honduras. When they drive here, theyre always blaring their sirens or honking their horns, she said. As the regions population grew around the factories beginning in the 1980s, local infrastructure to support residents did not. But their first recourse, the police, are often less than helpful. I dont want that to happen to me.. Denis Daniel Flores Carranza, 9, at the grave of his sister, Katherine Nicolle Bonilla Carranza, who was murdered in 2017. President Trumps plan to cut off foreign aid is exactly the wrong thing to do. Get top headlines from the Union-Tribune in your inbox weekday mornings, including top news, local, sports, business, entertainment and opinion. There are so many needs in this area, says Assaf, who lives in nearby San Pedro Sula. Citizenship and Immigration Services has not yet fulfilled a public records request filed by the Union-Tribune in December 2019. Nos vemos pronto en algn escenario si Dios nos permite, Villanueva wrote. To address these issues, MSF launched its servicio prioritario, or priority service, to offer emergency medical and psychological care to victims of violence. They were tortured and killed in their home, most likely by gang members. I would prefer one thousand times to see a kid wearing himself out on the floor spinning there dancing with us than to see him smoking on the street.Villanueva organized events whose listed sponsors included the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, as well as its local partners. Who were you with? he demanded. Centroamrica es considerada una regin de riesgo extremo. He eventually found a job as a security guard. The morgue does an autopsy and an investigation, but four out of five times, according to employees at the San Pedro Sula morgue, their report isnt even picked up by prosecutors. But he escaped. Its a serious decision. Unlike in much of the world, where most murdered women are killed by their husbands, partners or family members, half in Honduras are killed by drug cartels and gangs. The cool season lasts for 2.9 months, from November 14 to February 10, with an average daily high temperature below 83F. Nilsa Rosibel Estrada Villanueva holds up a digital photo of her brother, Yovin Estrada Villanueva, in his casket. Around here, everyones dream is the American dream, said one mototaxi driver in another nearby town as he bobbled around potholes. He was on crack, Ms. Castellano said, which always makes him more aggressive, and he was angry that she wouldnt let his lover move in. Im going to kill you and your children, he said. It is not clear what the asylum officer based the decision on in Villanuevas case. She took her kids, and they sawhe was killed in a hit, strangled, and the body was in really bad shape. A mix of the charming, modern, and tried and true. choloma, honduras crime. In 2020, that number has dropped to 13, because of a committed team of men and women like Melania. Their governments are corrupted by drug trafficking routes that feed the addictions of U.S. consumers, and they are struggling under U.S. exports of gang violence and capitalist sweatshops. The country is going through a terrible crisis. Now Ms. Muoz leaves her home only to buy food or go to work. The World Bank . Para Mara Luisa Regalado, en Honduras ha habido avances y retrocesos en materia de derechos labores. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. The murder of Sherill Yubissa Hernndez Manca. The MSF outreach team worked with the children to provide emotional support and build coping mechanisms as they mourned the loss of their father. Honduras is locked in a war of grisly one-upmanship, and womens bodies are the battlefield. . Examining Local Solutions to Complex Challenges . But because Villanueva said he was afraid to go back to Honduras, an asylum officer screened him through a credible fear interview to see if he might have a chance at qualifying for protection in the United States. Pastor Pedro Perez Castro lost about a quarter of his 200-person congregation in Cofradia to migration, he said. Asylum seekers from certain other countries running from a multitude of conditions had much greater success, with grant rates as high as 74 percent and deportation rates as low as 24 percent, a stark contrast to the outcomes for the United States closest southern neighbors. This is at the core of who we are: We dont send people who arrive at our borders back to die. The administration has argued that these asylum seekers are economic migrants and that they are filing fraudulent asylum claims to gain access to the United States to work. He pulled the machete out from under their bed and swung the blade into the back of her legs. But the murders they keep happening. They went on foot down the dark road north, about 1,500 people, pushing carry-on luggage, strollers, a shopping cart, carrying babies in their arms. Paraiso Rainforest and Beach Hotel. But in places like San Pedro Sula, it is difficult to find someone who doesnt know of at least one person who was returned and killed. The statistics are similar for neighboring countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala and even Mexico that asylum seekers also frequently flee because of gang or cartel threats. 160816-N-CJ186-0200 (29152315406).jpg. Nearby cities and villages : San Pedro Sula and Omoa. Many in the scene have carried on Villanuevas work organizing and mentoring. Like you skin a pig, Ms. Muoz told me, shaking. Womens murders arent investigated or prosecuted. This has made it even more likely that people fleeing in legitimate fear for their lives may be deported to their deaths. The stranded, who were rescued by . Denis vila Maradiaga, head of the homicide unit at the Directorate for Police Investigations in San Pedro Sula, told me the police had put out an order to arrest Mr. Claro. While gangs do specifically target transportation workers like Villanueva, an immigration court precedent from 1985 says that a persons occupation does not count as a particular social group. I see issues with unresolved grief, anxiety and depression disorders, [and] sexual and domestic violence. In Nueva Capital, violence is a fact of life. In neighborhoods where more than one gang is vying for control, they call the required payments impuestos de guerra, war taxes. Discover the beauty hidden in the maps. She fears for his safety as well. It often worked. President Trump calls immigrants criminals, Men, of course, still make up a vast majority. Latin American nation of Honduras is the most violent country in the world, with 5,581 murders in 2014 . If we turn our backs now on Central American women who are running for their lives, we will be failing to meet the lowest possible bar for human rights. According to official statistics, 380 Honduran women were murdered last year (slightly fewer than in recent years), in a country with roughly the population of New York City. At 28, Ms. Hernandez awoke from surgery with her right leg amputated below the knee. They mock them, Ms. Reyes said. I have him in my heart, and I cant forget all of this. The womens body parts were found strewn around the feet in one place, the heads in another. A complex web of issues, from economic struggles to corrupt government, have created an environment ripe for gang domination that touches the majority of its citizens lives. After independence in 1821, San Pedro Sula together with the Aldea de Choloma became part of the department of Santa Brbara. (504) 2669-5655, 2669-5657, 2669-5658. We got married and had a child. But low wages and abysmal working conditions mean that many still live in poverty. After the killing, Villanueva began receiving threats a common occurrence for witnesses of gang crimes regardless of whether they go to the police. At the beginning life was easy for us, she says. Maybe you didnt give him what he needed last night? My answer was, Yes. Villanueva was targeted for two reasons: because he drove a mototaxi, and because he witnessed a killing. Altitud: 20 metros sobre el nivel del mar. In these places, gangs often become a parallel or replacement authority with tight control over movement, business transactions and more. Its wrong to turn our backs on vulnerable women under any circumstances, but especially when they are coming from countries like Honduras, where the government is doing virtually nothing to protect them and is sometimes itself the predator. Villanuevas city, Choloma, had a homicide rate of 64.1 per 100,000 people, nearly double the rate of the much larger San Pedro Sula, the hub of the metropolitan area. Many people in this community, if they are lucky enough to find work, commute to jobs in Tegucigalparisking mugging, kidnapping, or worse on the way. Women and girls are also increasingly being recruited by gangs and criminal organizations to sell drugs in Honduras. If you dont cut it out, we will put you in jail! they would shout. Factory employees make around $200 per month working 60 hour weeks, according to interviews conducted by the Union-Tribune. Gangs are violent, but they target different groups in specific ways.. When he wasnt driving his mototaxi, he was focused on his role as a community organizer and youth mentor. They believe Mr. Claro hauled the sack out Sunday night and left it, covered in grass and trash, on the side of the road a few blocks away. Choloma women are asking for help: Each year, about 1,400 seek out the Choloma Womens Office, a city agency that helps women with their domestic violence cases, and another 500 go directly to Cholomas courts. The bus stop was always guarded by the police. Others have been living in the US for 10 years or more and have lost contact with family and friends in Honduras. See Choloma photos and images from satellite below, explore the aerial photographs of Choloma in Honduras. The more we work, the more needs we see. Intentamos enfrentarlo en una manera positiva. Sometimes the police are so afraid to even go to a violent neighborhood that they tell the woman she has to serve her abuser the restraining order on her own. One day the husband didnt come home. Neighbors later found his body lying in the street and went to tell the woman. Not yet rated (0 Reviews) For six months, she washed her body with bleach to try to remove the stain of the trauma. No est escrito a la ligera. She was having an affair with Wilfredo Garcia, who was the head of the agencys office in San Pedro Sula, Hondurass second-largest city. In order to adapt services for people on the move, MSF is implementing a new survey at its projects in Honduras to screen for people who have been forced to leave their homes and to assess their medical and psychological needs. Eventually Ms. Ramirez moved out and rented her own room nearby, but one night, on Oct. 30, 2016, she returned to find her husband waiting. Susan Martin, a professor emerita at Georgetown University who led a congressional commission in the 1990s on immigration reform, said many U.S. asylum officers have told her that they had to turn down people they believe to be in danger. The WRC's work at the Jerzees Choloma (JCH) and JDH factories was initiated in September 2007, pursuant to allegations that the both facilities - which are located nearby each other in the city of Choloma, Honduras - had dismissed large numbers of workers in retaliation for their decision to form unions. She says the police never investigated anyone at the wedding to determine who kidnapped her. Hay 134 personas ms con el nombre de Javier Daz Prez en LinkedIn . They peeled the skin from Ms. Murillos legs. support MSFs lifesaving care with a gift. Ms. Garcia, the woman whose friend was killed, has been gang-raped not once but twice in her 38 years. In 2013 the Honduran government passed a law imposing harsher sentences for femicides gender-motivated killings in which the perpetrator was a partner, a family member, an ex, or had committed domestic violence; in which sex preceded the death; or in which the victims body was degraded or mutilated. Ms. Hernndez was a 28-year-old agent for the Agencia Tcnica de Investigacin Criminal, or ATIC, Hondurass F.B.I., the agency charged with investigating the killings of women. One of the cases I remember most was a family, says Assaf. The state of Corts is by far the worst. Heidy Hernandezs husband, Marcio Amilcar Mateo, was an alcoholic and a control freak. He was a bboy someone who practices the hip-hop art of breaking, a dance that originated in the United States in the 1970s. The Organization of American States questioned the validity of his 2017 election and his brother, Tony, was arrested last year by the United States for large-scale drug trafficking. This summer, after a wondrous journey through Honduras, three big MAN Energy Solutions engines reached the combined heat and power plant that ElcaTex is building in Choloma. Thanks to the contra war, when the United States secretly funded right-wing militia groups in Central America, there are an estimated 1.8 million guns in Honduras. In late May 2018, U.S. officials put Villanueva on a flight from San Antonio, Texas, to San Pedro Sula, according to U.S. government records. The Violence Observatory says that more than 60 percent of womens murders are femicides, but the charge has been used only 33 times during a period when 1,569 women and girls died violently. One torso was missing. And worse. Growing up in Choloma, Honduras, one of the country's most deadly cities to live in, 14-year-old Sandra Jennifer Salinas Martinez understands why so many families want to leave. Blaine Bookey, legal director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at UC Hastings, said that result isnt acceptable in a system meant to protect vulnerable people. Citizens say we dont do anything and the truth is, theyre right.. You dog!, he said. From April through the middle of November in 2019, they had 93 homicides to investigate. As they are seated in rows of folding chairs, their belongingsconfiscated during incarceration and packed in white polypropylene bagsare unloaded by volunteers. Villanueva's city, Choloma, had a homicide rate of 64.1 per 100,000 people, nearly. We thought it was about. She was executed and they are trying to cover it up., They cut off everything. Choloma, Corts, Honduras IT Business Analyst GRUPO ELCATEX may. In April, the average heat index is evaluated at a scorching 41C (105.8F). Together with demographic data, the results of the survey will help MSF teams to tailor health services to those who need care the most. Available Information : Mayor, Geographical coordinates, Population, Area, Altitude, Weather and Hotel. If you put a machete to your wifes throat, all the police can do is lock you up for 24 hours, and they often dont even do that on weekends, said Saida Martinez, a leader of the Lpez Arellano womens group. Even after they are killed, most women dont get any justice. Whatever the Trump administration says, the women are not criminals; they are victims. He thought about leaving again. Vos sabes que el hip hop nos tendr unidos. These research projects are based on surveys and in-depth interviews with people with a history of gang membership in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. The WRC found that the dismissals . When planes carrying deportees arrive from the US or Mexico, the team here welcomes them and distributes coffee, snacks, and hygiene kits. Its like they are announcing to the gangs: Were coming!. U.S. Nearly half of its population is . People here are deeply affected by violence, especially women, she says. Rubi-dulceamor1120@hotmail.com. According to Ms. Hernandezs account, Mr. Amilcar made $81 a week and brought home less than that. That level of poverty gives way to a lot of criminal groups that otherwise wouldnt exist.. They are bused from the airport to the main terminal, from which they can catch buses onward. [2] Many factories are stationed in Choloma due to its cheap labour which has boosted the municipality's economy. She got into organizing after a Belgian labor rights organizer she washed clothes for suggested she attend a womens meeting in the capitol. Starting in the 1980s it became a hub for tax-free industrial parks where American, Canadian and Korean textile factories produced products for Hanes, Fruit of the Loom, Nike and Adidas. At 9 a.m. on a Monday in early July, the clinics waiting area is already thronged with people who have come to receive free care. Mr. Claro has been spotted over the past two years in the nearby 18th Street strongholds of Japn and Kilmetro. Then things got bad. In the first six months of 2018 the center has already received 3,500 more deportees compared to the same period last year. There were two marks under her chin, suggesting she had been strangled by someone expert in cutting off oxygen without leaving bruises. En route to the U.S., he responded to a friends message on Facebook with his characteristic optimism, keeping the terrifying details to himself. Federal tax ID#: 13-3433452, Mdecins Sans Frontires 2022 They formed a circle with his coffin and took turns dedicating rounds of dancing to him, often pausing to kiss his coffin. Last November, when Cholomas Womens Office held a training, funded partly by U.S.A.I.D., about how to better handle domestic violence, the police were invited but didnt come, Ms. Domnguez said. Also, being a small town, there are fewer accommodation options. The sky over the La Lpez clinic is clearing after torrential rains as MSF psychologist mbar Assaf gazes out through the bars of the heavy iron gate to the street beyond.