Tegucigalpa (AFP) – Honduran authorities stepped up security Wednesday around a school, the presidential palace, and other sites in the capital Tegucigalpa following a warning from the US embassy of a mass shooting threat. The US Embassy in Honduras often alerts American citizens about the risks from criminal violence in the country, part of Central America’s gang-plagued “triangle of death” along with neighbors El Salvador and Guatemala.
But the latest alert left many in Honduras perplexed. While the country is no stranger to tit-for-tat killings between rival gangs and drug traffickers, it has no recent history of mass shootings or bomb attacks. The embassy said on X it had “received information about a potential mass shooting threat today, May 6, and again on May 16 in Tegucigalpa.” It cited a little-known private school in southern Tegucigalpa, the area housing government buildings, and an “unidentified mall” as possible targets and said it “strongly urged” US citizens to avoid the areas.
Around 20 military police officers armed with rifles on Wednesday patrolled the perimeter of Elliot Dover Christian School, situated in a middle-class neighborhood surrounded by a concrete wall. The school’s principal, Maria de los Angeles Mendez, told AFP that classes were “proceeding as normal” and said the school had received no direct threat. Security was also tightened around the Civic Center, the area housing the presidential palace and several ministries, as well as the city’s American School, which has large numbers of US students.
Honduran Police Director Juan Manuel Godoy said Tuesday that the US warning was based on information from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). A spokesman for the Honduran armed forces, Mario Rivero, told AFP that the security forces were intensifying their investigations into possible threats. But some members of leftwing President Xiomara Castro’s government were skeptical and suggested the United States would be better off minding its own citizens. Writing on X, Planning Minister Ricardo Salgado remarked that “despite all its technology and intelligence, the US never anticipated a mass shooting on its territory.”
© 2024 AFP
