TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Two separate gun attacks in northern Honduras have killed at least 25 people, including plantation workers and police officers, in one of the country’s deadliest days of violence this year.
The first attack took place Thursday in Rigores, a community in the municipality of Trujillo, in Honduras’s northern Colón department. Authorities initially said at least 10 workers had been killed on a remote palm plantation, but the death toll later rose to 19, according to reports citing Honduran officials. The victims were labourers in an area long affected by violent land disputes linked to palm oil production and control of fertile farmland.
Edgardo Barahona, a spokesperson for the National Police, said investigators were still working to establish the full scale of the massacre. He said some relatives had removed bodies from the scene before forensic teams could complete their work, complicating the investigation.
Local media reported that armed men opened fire indiscriminately on workers, including people gathered near a church. Images from the scene showed bodies lying on the ground, some still wearing heavy rubber boots used for farm work. Several victims were reportedly members of the same family.
No motive has been formally identified, but the region has been the centre of long-running agrarian conflict. Rights groups and researchers have documented repeated attacks against rural communities, farmers and land activists in the Aguán Valley and surrounding areas, where disputes over palm plantations have persisted for years. Reuters reported in 2021 that land conflict in the region had been linked to nearly 150 deaths and disappearances.
In a separate incident on the same day, six police officers were killed in Omoa, in Cortés department, near the border with Guatemala. The officers had travelled from Tegucigalpa for an anti-gang operation when they were ambushed after entering a building to search for suspects. Among those killed was Deputy Commissioner Lester Amador, a member of the Anti-Maras, Gangs and Organised Crime Police Directorate, known as DIPAMPCO.
Following the attacks, Honduras’s National Police said it would immediately intervene in the affected areas, promising firm action to capture those responsible, protect vulnerable communities and ensure justice for victims.
The killings have renewed concerns over public security in Honduras, where authorities have relied heavily on militarised policing to confront gangs and organised crime. A state of exception introduced in 2022 expanded security powers but drew criticism from rights groups over alleged abuses and weakened civil liberties. AP reported that the emergency measures had recently ended, even as violence remains a major challenge.
