Organized criminals killed at least 25 people, including civilians and police officers, on Thursday in two separate attacks in northern Honduras, authorities said, as the Central American country prepares to intensify its crackdown on gang violence, News.Az reports, citing AFP.

The deadliest attack occurred at dawn in the municipality of Trujillo in the Colón department, where 19 people were shot dead with high-powered rifles in an area affected by gang turf wars linked to a palm plantation and drug trafficking routes, according to authorities.

In a separate incident near the Guatemalan border in Omoa, in the Cortés department, national police said five officers and one civilian were killed during a confrontation between an anti-drug unit and suspected traffickers.

The attacks come after Honduras’s national legislature approved a set of reforms aimed at confronting criminal violence in a country where the homicide rate stands at 24 killings per 100,000 inhabitants.

The new measures authorize the military to take part in public security operations and establish a new anti-organized crime unit. They also open the possibility of classifying gangs and drug cartels as terrorist organizations.

Honduras’s new conservative president Nasry Asfura has pledged to cooperate with US President Donald Trump in efforts to combat organized crime across Latin America.

According to a local rural leader, the victims in Trujillo were employees of an armed group that controlled the plantation. The leader, who requested anonymity for security reasons, said residents in the area reported heavy gunfire during the attack.

News.Az 

By Nijat Babayev