Tegucigalpa, January 15 (RHC)-- In the first 13 days of 2019, there have been five major killings in Honduras in what local media are calling massacres, where 18 people have been killed by gunmen.  The fifth and latest of these took place Sunday afternoon.  The bodies of three men and one woman were found in bags along a highway north of the capital of Tegucigalpa.

The first massacre occurred on New Year’s Day when three people were killed.  The same number were killed on January 2nd and days later another three victims were gunned down.

The fourth mass killing also happened in the capital when four young men and one woman were approached by several gunmen in a car who then sprayed the victims with bullets from automatic weapons January 10th as they were talking on the sidewalk.  The families of the victims said that one of the killed was bound to a wheelchair.  Most were aged 18.

The Honduran Attorney General’s office and the national police say they are investigating the rash of murders but no suspects have been apprehended yet.

The spate of massacres does not include the several other homicides that have taken place alongside these violent massacres in Honduras this year.  In total, 14 people died violent deaths on January 1st alone.

Although the country’s homicide rate dropped by 26 percent from the year before, Honduras registered 3,791 killings in 2017, according to InSight Crimes.