Rather glad now that we decided at the last minute against spending the Christmas break in Thailand. The death toll in Guatemala over the weekend was a comparatively paltry 27, largely the result of fireworks, firearms and other such festivities.
Over in San Pedro Sula in Honduras however, 28 passengers (predominantly women and children) perished last Thursday when a gang opened fire on their bus with machine guns. The perpretators then left a message for the authorities: "Donde está la seguridad?" (Where is the security?)
Nobody is yet sure who to blame for this act of terrorism, whose magnitude would have caused profound shock in this part of the world even in the days of the insurgency back in the 80s. The Honduran government has recently been taking some rather extreme measures against the local branches of LA gangs known as the maras (most notably La Mara Salvatrucha), and this attack may well have been a show of defiance by the mareros.
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