PRESIDENT Xiomara Castro declared a curfew yesterday in a region of Honduras where suspected hitmen hired by drug traffickers shot and killed 11 people in a billiard hall.

The mass shooting took place in Choloma, a town near San Pedro Sula, the second largest city in this country plagued by poverty, gang violence and drug trafficking, all of which are fuelling a desperate exodus north toward Mexico and ultimately the United States.

Witnesses posted a video online of bloodied bodies at the pool hall, where people were celebrating a birthday party. Gunmen entered and opened fire, the witnesses said.

Ten men and a woman were killed, said Miguel Martinez, a spokesman for the National Police.

Castro said on Twitter the curfew in Choloma and San Pedro Sula will be in effect starting yesterday from 9pm to 4am.

Castro said she was acting after “the brutal and ruthless terrorist attack by hired killers trained and directed by drug lords” in a troubled area called the Sula Valley.

The attack came a week after a vicious battle between rival gangs left at least 46 women dead in a prison near the capital Tegucigalpa.

That outburst of violence erupted when members of the Barrio 18 gang burst into an area housing the rival Mara Salvatrucha  group, shot at them, and set the place on fire, according to authorities and witnesses. – AFP, June 26, 2023.