At least nineteen farm workers were massacred in a village in northern Honduras believed to be controlled by criminal groups, while four police officers were killed in a discreet attack, the prosecutor’s office and police said yesterday (Thursday).

The land workers were killed Wednesday night in Rigores, a village near the town of Trujillo, where gunmen have illegally seized land to exploit palm trees.

“Two teams are working in different locations. In the first one, a group of 13 victims was identified, while in the second one 6 are being counted,” Yuri Mora, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, told the HCH television network.

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It is alleged that “the people who were murdered” in Trujillo were working for an “armed organisation”, an agricultural trade unionist in a community neighbouring the village of Rigores told the French News Agency by telephone.

“These are farmers, members of the peasant movement in Rigores,” AFP Adilia Castro, a leading figure in the community, told .

A video broadcast by a regional TV station shows as many as nine bodies, bloodied, scattered down, in one of the fields.

“Many people were apparently executed with large-caliber weapons, probably rifles and shotguns,” Security Minister Herson Velasquez told reporters.

The village of Rigores is under the yoke of criminal organizations that have taken over and are illegally exploiting palm plantations, the head of the police in Trujillo, Carlos Rojas, told a television network. Their revenues “allow them to arm themselves and control the area,” he added.

According to Minister Velasquez, the scale of this massacre is unprecedented in the zone where “conflict has been raging for years” between organisations involved in drug trafficking and farmland occupations.

Meanwhile, four police officers and a civilian were killed yesterday in a shootout with alleged drug traffickers in Omoa, a region bordering Guatemala in the western part of the country, according to police.

The government has ordered additional police and armed forces elements to be deployed in Trujillo and Omoa.

The outbreak of violence comes as parliament approved a series of measures and reforms to tackle crime, including supporting the military in law enforcement operations, establishing a special unit against organised crime and allowing gangs to be labelled “terrorist” organisations.