Honduras News - Daily News about Honduras

Wearing white and waving handkerchiefs, some 30,000 Hondurans marched in the northern city of San Pedro Sula on Wednesday to condemn a bloody crime wave fueled by violence between rival drug gangs.

“We want peace, we want peace,” shouted the marchers who took to the streets of the country’s second largest city, home to drug traffickers fighting to control routes of Colombian cocaine bound for the United States.

Some marchers carried photographs of relatives killed in the violence and dozens of doves were freed at the city cathedral where the march, organized by the Roman Catholic Church and local business groups, ended.

Two divers from this Honduran Naval Base receive instruction from retired Admiral F. Gonzales (right) before entering the water to participate in Course 17. The course is designed to build confidence between pairs of divers who find themselves stuck within a riptide or other strong underwater current and have only one air tank to share. Photo by Staff Sgt. Danny McCormick, Beyond the Horizon Public Affairs Office.

PUERTO CASTILLO NAVAL BASE, Honduras - Honduran navy divers stationed at Puerto Castillo Naval Base fought their way through Course 17 today, literally. The course is designed to build confidence between pairs of divers who find themselves stuck within a riptide or other strong underwater current and have only one air tank to share.

Fidencio Alvarez abandoned his bean and corn farm in southern Honduras because of the rising cost of seeds, fuel and food. After months of one meal a day, he hiked with his wife and six children to find work in the city.

“We would wake up with empty stomachs and go to bed with empty stomachs,” said Alvarez, 37, who sought help from the Mission Lazarus aid group in Choluteca in January. “We couldn’t afford the seeds to plant food or the bus fare to buy the food.”

In late March, George Wilson Welcome flashed onto the scene with a dramatic deciding goal as Honduras won the CONCACAF Olympic qualifying tournament in Nashville, Tenn.

Welcome’s score in the 108th minute gave the Catrachos a 1-0 victory over the U.S. in the title game. But though the goal was impressive and Welcome himself physically striking, little was known about him before then and not much information has emerged since.

Welcome, a 6-foot-3 former basketball player, went to CD Motagua in Tegucigalpa soon after the qualifying tournament. But after training with Motagua for less than a month, Welcome remains contracted to his hometown club, Arsenal, and is now on trial with the New England Revolution.