At least 25 dead after gunmen open fire in two attacks in Honduras

Gunmen carried out two separate attacks Thursday on the Honduran coast, killing at least 25 people, including six police officers, authorities said. The first took place at a plantation in the municipality of Trujillo in northern Honduras, where at least 19 workers were shot dead, said Public Prosecutor's Office spokesperson Yuri Mora.

A resource-rich region, it has been the scene of a decades-long agrarian conflict. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has already issued precautionary measures to some activists in the region who have been threatened, surveilled and intimidated for their work defending the environment and land rights.

The murder of environmental leader Juan López in 2024 brought the dangers of defending natural resources in this heavily militarised corner of Honduras to the fore. The Central American country is regularly rated as one of the most dangerous places in the world for environmentalists, with five killed in 2024 and 18 the previous year, according to non-governmental organisation Global Witness.

Recently, three people were arrested for masterminding Lopez’s killing, providing a rare glimpse of justice in a country with high rates of impunity. Police said six officers, including a senior officer, were killed in a second attack when gunmen opened fire on police in the municipality of Omoa in the Cortes department near the Guatemalan border.

Police said the officers were on an anti-gang mission when they were attacked on the road to Omoa from the capital, Tegucigalpa. The count of the dead in Trujillo was complicated in part because relatives of victims had taken the bodies of loved ones away, national police spokesperson Edgardo Barahona said earlier Thursday. He said investigators had been sent to the scene.

The Security Ministry said that the National Police and armed forces will respond to both the areas where attacks occurred, and teams including forensic specialists and prosecutors will be formed to investigate.

Honduras has long struggled with high levels of crime, particularly from gangs and the cross-border drug trade. However, the country’s homicide rate has fallen sharply in recent years after peaking at 83 murders per 100,000 people in 2011, the World Bank says.

International human rights organisations have criticised Honduras’s militarized approach to fighting crime, saying it has led to human rights abuses including torture, forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. This includes a three-year state of exception that suspended some constitutional rights and gave more power to security forces, which ended in January 2026.