Gunmen in Honduras Attack Bus, Killing 23

Gunmen opened fire on a public bus in northern Honduras late Thursday, killing at least 23 passengers and wounding 16 others, police said. Many aboard were women and children.

The bus was traveling through Chamelecon, 110 miles north of the capital, Tegucigalpa, when a car carrying an unknown number of armed assailants cut it off and other attackers fired from behind the bus, Police Deputy Commissioner Wilmer Torres said.

Torres said most of the passengers were women and children, but the sex and ages of the victims were not released. The bus driver was among the dead, police said.

Sixteen of the victims died aboard the bus; seven others died at a hospital, he said.

“What happened tonight is a barbaric and cowardly act ... an attack against all Hondurans,” President Ricardo Maduro said in a nationally televised address.

Police arrested a suspect believed to be a member of the violent Mara Salvatrucha gang and confiscated a pistol and several automatic weapons, Torres said.

Mara Salvatrucha and another gang, Mara 18, claim to have more than 100,000 members in Honduras. The gangs are known for extorting “protection” money from residents and committing robberies, homicides and other crimes.

Maduro has waged a “zero-tolerance” campaign against the gangs, and at his bidding Congress approved a law in August 2003 that sentences gang members to up to 12 years in prison. Gang members have responded with more violent attacks.

Torres said the assailants left a note saying they represented a revolutionary group that opposes the death penalty.

It also contained vulgar comments about congressional President Porfirio Lobo Sosa, who has suggested instituting the death penalty for severe crimes.