Chapter Eight: Latin America

In an attempt to counter endemic violence, tougher security policies were unveiled in 2014 by the three countries of Central America’s ‘northern triangle’: Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. The measures often included a military component, raising concerns about a deepening dependence on the armed forces for internal security. Such fears were compounded by the breakdown of the truce between the gangs of El Salvador – the region’s most significant security initiative not to involve the use of force – which led to an increasing number of homicides, particularly assassinations of police officers. Despite declining murder rates in Honduras and Guatemala, the northern triangle became the epicentre of a renewed wave of emigration to the United States. Many of these migrants were unaccompanied children, who put their fates in the hands of human smugglers nicknamed ‘coyotes’.