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Security analyst José Ponce Alvarado attributes 11 massacres and 59 deaths across Yoro, Atlántida, and Colón in 2026 to historic drug-trafficking routes, gang activity, and insufficient police control in departments where criminal structures operate with relative impunity.

Authorities say a dispute between criminal groups over territory and a 700-kilogram cocaine shipment triggered a shootout in remote Belén, Gracias a Dios in August 2013, leaving 14–17 dead and more than a dozen missing, though the exact toll and circumstances remain unclear.

Three of Honduras's five massacres so far this year have occurred in Yoro department, where rival criminal gangs, maras, drug-trafficking networks, and land-invasion groups are competing for territory across municipalities including Olanchito, El Progreso, and Sulaco.