News Intro Text
[Business Insider- Australia, October 31, 2014]
Date
News Item Content
<p>by: Jeremy Relph, <em>Business Insider Australia </em></p>
<p>On a Saturday morning in late August 2013, 10-year-old Daniel Chacon awoke early. It was hot, as mornings often are in Bordos de Agua Azul, his neighbourhood in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. His family was poor, barely scraping together a living by selling pickled vegetables on the roadside.</p>
<p>Daniel and his 14-year-old brother insisted on contributing as best they could. They’d managed to talk their parents into renting a horse and buggy, which they used to collect discarded boxes, selling the cardboard to recycling collectors for pennies a pound.</p>
<p>It may have seemed like a tedious job, but there was an element of risk to the task because of an unfortunate characteristic of the area: Since 2011, San Pedro Sula has been the world’s most murderous city. (Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, holds the No. 4 spot.) Children fleeing these horrors have recently become a political issue in the US, where they are increasingly turning up in search of asylum and safety. But Daniel and his brother are among those who stayed.</p>
<p>Occasionally during their rounds, they’d split up to cover more ground, taking turns leaving the cart to scout for boxes on foot. At 2 p.m., Daniel’s brother was making his way back to the cart through the crowded streets of the Medina neighbourhood when shots rang out. Police sped by on motorcycles.</p>
<p>By the time he arrived, Daniel was dead.</p>
<p>“He got shot,” a bystander told him. “They took him to the hospital.”</p>
<p>Sadly, the slaying of a child for no discernible reason is hardly a noteworthy event in Honduras, where there are on average some 19 homicides reported every day. In San Pedro Sula, residents are murdered at the annual rate of 169 per 100,000 residents, a staggering figure that dwarfs the US leader, Flint, Michigan, where the murder rate is 62 for every 100,000.</p>
<p>While the Obama administration struggles to get a handle on the problem — having recently instituted a “get tough” detention policy designed to slow the influx of families seeking asylum — children like Daniel Chacon are caught in the crossfire every day.</p>
<p>In an effort to understand what life is like in the world’s murder capital, we spent 2 weeks in San Pedro Sula. We found a city in crisis, but also a place steeped in hope, where the circus still comes to town, the local crime reporter struggles with an overwhelming task, and life goes on — until it doesn’t.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com.au/murder-capital-san-pedro-sula-2014-10">MORE>> </a></p>
<p>On a Saturday morning in late August 2013, 10-year-old Daniel Chacon awoke early. It was hot, as mornings often are in Bordos de Agua Azul, his neighbourhood in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. His family was poor, barely scraping together a living by selling pickled vegetables on the roadside.</p>
<p>Daniel and his 14-year-old brother insisted on contributing as best they could. They’d managed to talk their parents into renting a horse and buggy, which they used to collect discarded boxes, selling the cardboard to recycling collectors for pennies a pound.</p>
<p>It may have seemed like a tedious job, but there was an element of risk to the task because of an unfortunate characteristic of the area: Since 2011, San Pedro Sula has been the world’s most murderous city. (Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, holds the No. 4 spot.) Children fleeing these horrors have recently become a political issue in the US, where they are increasingly turning up in search of asylum and safety. But Daniel and his brother are among those who stayed.</p>
<p>Occasionally during their rounds, they’d split up to cover more ground, taking turns leaving the cart to scout for boxes on foot. At 2 p.m., Daniel’s brother was making his way back to the cart through the crowded streets of the Medina neighbourhood when shots rang out. Police sped by on motorcycles.</p>
<p>By the time he arrived, Daniel was dead.</p>
<p>“He got shot,” a bystander told him. “They took him to the hospital.”</p>
<p>Sadly, the slaying of a child for no discernible reason is hardly a noteworthy event in Honduras, where there are on average some 19 homicides reported every day. In San Pedro Sula, residents are murdered at the annual rate of 169 per 100,000 residents, a staggering figure that dwarfs the US leader, Flint, Michigan, where the murder rate is 62 for every 100,000.</p>
<p>While the Obama administration struggles to get a handle on the problem — having recently instituted a “get tough” detention policy designed to slow the influx of families seeking asylum — children like Daniel Chacon are caught in the crossfire every day.</p>
<p>In an effort to understand what life is like in the world’s murder capital, we spent 2 weeks in San Pedro Sula. We found a city in crisis, but also a place steeped in hope, where the circus still comes to town, the local crime reporter struggles with an overwhelming task, and life goes on — until it doesn’t.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com.au/murder-capital-san-pedro-sula-2014-10">MORE>> </a></p>