Prince Harry declares US home, renounces British residency
Prince Harry officially makes the United States his primary residence, renouncing ties to the UK royal family in a significant move.
At least 18 inmates were killed and many injured after a violent clash between prisoners at a jail in Honduras on Friday.
The National Penitentiary Institute said 17 prisoners had died at the facility and another died in hospital, with local media describing the unrest as gang violence.
It was not clear what sparked the melee at the prison in Tela, about 120 miles (200 kilometres) from Tegucigalpa, the capital of the small Central American country.
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Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, grappling with a recent wave of prison killings, had ordered the army and the police on Tuesday to take full control of the country’s 27 prisons, which are badly overcrowded with some 21,000 inmates.
Hernandez announced the crackdown after the killings on December 14 of five members of feared gang Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) by a fellow detainee at the high-security prison in La Tolva, 25 miles east of Tegucigalpa.
The clash came just a day after Pedro Idelfonso Armas, the warden of El Pozo — the country’s main high-security prison, in the western city of Santa Barbara — had been murdered.
President Hernandez condemned the conviction of his younger brother, saying it was based on “the testimony of confessed assassins.”
To fight this scourge, President Hernandez created a military police force financed by a new tax and built special prisons for gang members.
The sky-high crime rate has been a key factor behind a wave of migration toward the United States, notably by minors who say they fear being forced into gangs.
(With inputs from agency)
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