Tegucigalpa, March 5 (teleSur-RHC)-- Honduran police violently evicted 30 families on Wednesday in the department of La Paz, arresting 15 people and leaving families homeless.

“Some 100 police agents arrived at this piece of land between Planes de Santa Maria and Las Crucitas and evicted the comrades. They destroyed their small houses and their bean, corn, banana and vegetable crops,” Luis Gonzalez of the National Rural Workers Central (CNTC) said, adding that among the 15 arrested were 3 women.

Gonzalez stated that the families had been occupying the 50-hectare land for four years. A local landowner successfully made a judge issue an eviction order to remove the families from the land.

The eviction of the 30 families occurred the same day of the Honduran Rural Worker's Day.

Rafael Alegria, a noted peasant leader and member of Congress for the leftist Libre party, criticized the government policies with regard to rural workers. “Rural workers eat one day and don't eat the next, and they're in this situation due to the lack of support from the government. We also have 12 rural workers who are imprisoned, some sentenced up to 18 years for occupying lands in order to survive,” Alegria told AFP.

Honduras suffers from unequal land distribution, with many rural workers forced to occupy unproductive lands to survive. In some cases the title to the land is handed over to rural workers, however, they are evicted often when the landowner issue a petition to a judge.