Crisis Group Honduras

Background

While homicides have fallen in the rest of Central America's Northern Triangle, Hondurans endured another year of rising violence in 2012: murder rates were 86 per 100,000 inhabitants nationwide and 169 per 100,000 in San Pedro Sula, now considered the most violent city in the world. President Porfirio Lobo's efforts to combat crime while reforming and purging the police have run into budgetary and political obstacles. The dismissal of four Supreme Court justices in December by Congress at the president's request generated a still unresolved constitutional crisis, highlighting the fragility of democratic institutions still recovering from the 2009 ouster of President José Manuel Zelaya.

Images