Over 50 killed in Honduras over Christmas

Over 50 people were reported killed in violent incidents across Honduras on Christmas Eve, while the capital's Escuela hospital received a steady stream of injuries from guns, knives and machetes, agencies and press reported citing police and hospital sources. A police spokesman told EFE agency that 30 were known to have died in acts of violence on 24 December and 11 in car accidents, while remaining deaths were to be investigated. Forty four people were admitted to the emergencies wing of the Escuela hospital in Tegucicalpa between Christmas Eve and midday on Christmas Day, El Heraldo reported on 26 December, observing that most were effectively drunk. Among them 28 had been injured by handguns and 16 by knives or machetes. La Prensa cited police as counting 52 violent deaths and 73 injuries across the country, though it was not immediately clear if this included part of Christmas Day. Of the victims of crimes, 24 died in San Pedro Sula and its environs, La Prensa reported on 25 December. One of these was the lawyer Juan Antonio Romero Rodríguez, shot in San Pedro on 24 September by two men who stopped his car. The website Proceso Digital observed this was the second killing of a lawyer in recent days, in a country where lawyers are frequently targetted for elimination. It reported the killing on 20 or 21 December of the lawyer José Ramon Logos and a client in the northern city of El Progreso, both shot as they left a courtroom.