All Blog Posts Tagged 'Honduras' (71)

Per ABC News: While Mexico's murder rate of 19 killings per 100,000 residents is about four times higher than the murder rate in the U.S. and 20 times higher than Canada's, Mexico's murder rate is significantly smaller than the murder rate of nearby Latin American destinations like Honduras, Venezuela or Guatemala, which had 39 murders per 100,000 people in 2012. Brazil, the country that will host millions of tourists for the next year's World Cup, has…

In at least five instances over the last number of months, according to the AP, gang members in Honduras have disappeared after being confronted by the national police. Members of the 18^th Street Gang are accusing the national police of forming "death squads" of armed men who either kill the gang members or make them…

This is my family's story, which appeared in this morning's Star-Ledger newspaper in New Jersey. Four years after my brother's disappearance from the island of Roatan, it is the first time we've been able to get out of the Middlesex County section and onto the front page (above the fold! This is progress!). It's also the first story to try to touch on the larger issues facing…

This article in American Airlines' magazine, American Way, uncritically promotes Honduras as a tourism destination without providing even a perfunctory caveat about safety. This country's rampant and escalating crime problem warrants a full-blown travel advisory from the State Department, not more puff pieces looking to draw…

Michael Overfield, who was named Silverton’s First Citizen for 2000 and was known for his efforts to restore historical buildings in the small East Valley town, was shot and killed Feb. 27 on an island off the coast of Honduras. The 53-year-old developer moved to Central America about a decade ago, according to his son, Tim Overfield, who declined to discuss the details of his father’s death.

Overfield was killed…

The Honduran government is asking for help from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in solving a five-month-old homicide case involving a Canadian citizen. Themy-Alexandre Vallée, 34, was shot outside a bar on the island of Roatan while on vacation in Honduras in October 2012. His friends and family have been questioning why the suspect, whose identity is known to police, hasn’t been arrested.…

The mother of a man slain in Honduras in October is asking the Canadian government to put pressure on Honduran authorities to catch her son's killer. Chantal Vallée's son Themy-Alexandre Vallée, 34, was shot in the head outside a bar on the island of Roatan, a popular destination for divers and other tourists.

Honduran police have arrested a suspected accomplice in the slaying of the Montreal man, who was an officer with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans. However, Vallée…

A heartbroken mom is staging a one-woman protest in an effort to get information about the murder of her son in Honduras. Donna Bryan wants Government or police to help ensure the killing of her son, Seaford Lee Russell, in La Ceiba on October 13 last year, is properly investigated. Ms Bryan said her son was shot multiple times. She claims she has been given no information about any investigation in Honduras or whether arrests have been made in the…

Unknown gunmen on Tuesday shot dead the deputy mayor of the Caribbean port city of La Ceiba, Ángel Salinas, when he was driving to his office, police chief Oswaldo Flores said.

“He had just left his house when two men on a motorcycle approached his car and shot him. They left him wounded, but he died minutes after he arrived at the hospital,” Flores said.

He said police officers are conducting a sweep La Ceiba, Honduras’ third largest city, located 400 km north of the…

The U.S. State Department tells my family we have to go through the broken-to-nonexistent Honduran "justice" system in order to get a finding that my brother (who disappeared at sea off the Honduran island of Roatan) can be declared dead. This after my family personally funded an exhaustive search/rescue operation (with belated and begrudged U.S. government assistance) and an in-depth into my brother's background and those of his business partner. At great personal expense and pain, we did…

Even before the tour bus comes to a stop, the women rise from their seats and wait in the aisle to exit. In their arms rest rolled-up flags of the Central American countries they come from. Large laminated photographs of missing loved ones hang by lanyards from their necks. They descend the stairs to a gaggle of waiting press photographers. This is their moment of hope, stirring once again the possibility of putting to rest years of uncertainty and desperation.

Maybe someone has seen…

A 34-year-old conservation officer with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in B.C. has been shot dead on the island of Roatan in Honduras. Tim Vallee, who worked for the DFO Pacific Region, was on holiday in Honduras this past week when he was robbed at gunpoint and shot in the head Wednesday.

Read more: …

Three years after his disappearance in Costa Rica and the Dixon family is no nearer to finding out what happened to their son.

Michael was last seen leaving his hotel in Tamarindo, Costa Rica on 18 October 2009.The British and Costa Rican response to the incident has been bugged by incompetence and false hope from start to end.

The Foreign Office did not tell the…

Another conversation with another mother (in this case, a mother -- could be a father, daughter, son, sister, brother, friend...) of a person missing in a foreign country, her own government (and mine) unwilling, unable to provide meaningful guidance, support, advice. I'm happy to be able to provide a bit of moral and practical advice and a connection with someone in her state who has been through the same ordeal. Then I'm on Facebook and see a guy who is scheduled to move in a couple weeks…

This story is about a month old -- wish I'd learned about it sooner. Reproduced below, it is a letter from the victims of the attack to the U.S. Ambassador in Tegucigalpa. Please remember if you travel in that part of the world that you have entered a lawless realm without legal recourse -- and, if you are an American, this fact is likely to hurt you more than…

...you might want to spend some time with this FaceBook group consisting of expats living there.

Thousands of people have been marching in cities across Honduras in protest at a wave of violence against journalists. More than 20 journalists have been murdered over the past three years.

None of the murders has been solved, and it is not clear whether the victims were targeted because of their profession.

Honduras has the world's highest…

Sam Wesley, the Roatan, Honduras man accused of shooting Australian citizen Joe O'Donnell in the back during an argument over where he parked his bicycle, has been committed to stand trial. O'Donnell was shot in the back at point-blank range in front of several witnesses on August 19. Almost two…

The family of slain Canadian architect Roger Walls hope to hear the fate of his accused killer by the end of September.

Walls was gunned down in Roatan, Honduras, in February 2009. Paralyzed from a gunshot to the neck, his family paid to have the 71-year-old airlifted back to Saskatoon. He died from complications to his injuries in April 2009.

The victim's brother, Vic Walls of Red Deer, Alta., says Julie Thompson, a Honduran woman, is charged with murder in the case for…

Joe O'Donnell, the 41-year-old Australian shot in the back on the island of Roatan, Honduras, has spent the past month recovering from his injuries.The man accused of the shooting has been charged with attempted assassination, due to the pre-meditated nature of the attack -- but remains under "house arrest",…