A Death in Honduras Our World

Honduras is the most murderous mission in the world. Someone dies

The capital is home to a unique organisation. The People's Funeral

Service helps poor families when they lose a loved one where every

Another day, another death. A community struggles to understand

the killing of a young man, just one of 20 people to meet a violent

end every day in Honduras. This man was gunned down to the day before

as he dropped his children off at school. He was just 26 years old.

His funeral has been funded by the People's Funeral Service, set up by

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the mayor of Tegucigalpa. This man It is certainly in demand. In

Honduras a toxic mix of guns, gangs and corruption has engineered the

highest homicide rate in the world, over a key times that of most

European countries. -- 80. The shade is will come under a tropical

sun. This is no picnic. It is the city's morgue. All of these people

are waiting for the body of a loved one to be released for burial.

Johnny and his colleagues from the People's Funeral Service are here

often and most of those Broughton have died of a violent death

somewhere in a Tegucigalpa. -- brought in. There is no shortage of

them. This couple are waiting for news about the remains of a

brother-in-law. They say he was shot in a dispute with a neighbour

and died this morning in hospital. It is another example of the

everyday instance of gun violence in the country. Nearly seven has

and 50,000 illegal firearms our own. Stay strong, says Tony, God will

help you. -- Johnny. The People's Funeral Service does not just help

the families of victims of violence. At the funeral home of the founder

is visiting. The mayor of Tegucigalpa is the President of the

ruling party. He is teasingly called Richard Gere and he has a

celebrity author as he confronts the mourners. This is a wake for

this lady. The mayor learns that she died from complications in

hospital. She was just 51 and sold sweets on the steps of a local

church. For families like this one made an impression on the mayor in

2005. I was running for mayor. One day I encountered a little child,

crying from the door of his house. I went to him and asked him what

happened. My mother left me. I asked the neighbour what was going

on. They told me that she took her television set to a porn shop to

get some money to put his father to rest. To get a coffin and some

things. I said this is something that is happening every day in the

capital. We have to do something about it. And then I started

promoting that if I became mayor we would have funeral homes to give

dignity to the poorest people of the city. It in a culture where

community ties are strong that may mean taking everything they needed

for a way. With an empty coffin on board, the pick up heads to the

gunshot victim. We joined them later. His family were taking him

We are heading north now behind the pick-up drug it has the coffin on

top. As you come off out of the city the scenery begins to change.

It becomes poorer. There are many The body in the coffin is that of

Ramon. -- Roman Orlando Borella. We It was just yesterday her son was

Do you have any idea who may be Friends and family will keep a

vigil here through the night. In the morning we will need them at

the cemetery for their sick's We have come back to the funeral

home here and we find another wake going on. This is another young man

who is 19 years old. Apparently killed in a drive-by shooting. He

was not the only one to die, somebody else died with him. I

asked his uncle if these kinds of killings happen often in the area

What is it like living with that kind of fear? Every day of your

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It is not only poor people who are being killed in the country. The

campus of the National University feels very different to the poor

areas of the capital. The students relax here with their friends and

could be anywhere. These young people are not safe either. Last

year in October, Honduras was shocked by the killing of two

students, allegedly at the hands of the police. The mother of one of

the victims is a vector of the university. Her son and his friend

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were shot as they drove home from a There was a huge reaction from

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Honduras people when this happened So far no office has been charged

in relation to the killings, but they did put police reform right at

the top of the political agenda in Honduras. This is one of hundreds.

For a long time a lot of us working in human rights has said, no-one

can do this, no-one can come into the communities armed like this and

hunt young people down and kill them. No-one can do this except

police officers. I asked the mayor of Tegucigalpa what the national

government is doing about police reform. We have to purify the

police as quickly as possible. We cannot demotivated t

It will not be easy. There are too many links between police and other

things. You have to take it in a way that the people doing it don't

lose their lives because they are going. Something needs to be done.

Everything is conscious about it. The Government is conscious about

it. I am conscious about it but you have to do it the right weight in

order that it doesn't hit you back stronger.

Cleaning up the police is critical. The capital's many small business

owners feel vulnerable as if they have no protection. One a young

Honduran who wants to remain anonymous tells us what happened at

his parents' restaurant last year. Someone came in. They hit two

clients. One died. One survive but has a problem with his late. One of

them was captured one month later and he was actually a policeman in

Yes. But he came in his uniform? Yes, in his uniform. You don't know

if you can trust in the police. does that make you feel as a young

person here? Hopeless. Honduras is a really nice country and we have

really nice people, hard-working people. But the situation that

really difficult. In two or three years I will be gone. My sister is

leaving it to Canada this year. My other brother, maybe in five years

he will move to Panama. They want to keep you safe? They want me to

go out of Honduras because the situation is getting worse every

day. We cannot trust anybody. Only family. You look really depressed

as you are telling me this story. Now you open the newspaper and

there is best everywhere. -- death. Tegucigalpa looks almost trampled

from up here, the highest point overlooking the city. -- tranquil.

But at street level, extreme levels of violence have become endemic. In

2009 a military coup against President Manuel Zelaya sparked a

wave of political killings. But the murder rate had already begun to

rise rapidly. In fact it has doubled since 2005. Many blame

Mexico's drug war, which has forced the cartel's down into Central

America. Around 80% of cocaine smuggling flights from the south

now touchdown in Honduras before moving to markets in the United

States and Europe. You have a country in which corruption is

deeply set at all levels. This is corruption on the one hand, and

then you have drug-related gang as well involved in getting into the

police and the military. And then you have a coup d'etat that tells a

place that it is absolutely OK to go above the law, to break the law.

You have the situation that we Irene now. It is not new. This is

not caused by the coup. -- that we are in. But it has been worsened by

it. Radio Globo is firmly identified with the anti-coup

political opposition in Honduras. Its journalists follow a radical

agenda. They talk of land rights, corruption and the links between

authorities and violent crime. But talk comes at a price. This is one

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of Radio Globo's presenters. She is 23 Honduran journalists have been

murdered since 2010. Assassins have also killed lawyers, gay and

lesbian campaigners, and political activists. The People's Funeral

Service sees only victims who are poor. It is simple humanity,

Today with the help of the team, Ramon is being played in his final

Shot in the street, he died a sudden and savage death, one of

that or all the hallmarks of a targeted assassination. Nobody