SAA event in Cortes, La Lima area, Honduras on Thu 19th February 2026

Around 19 February 2026 (between 15 - 20 February), outside La Lima, Cortes, a 20-year-old female medical student was killed in El Progreso, Yoro, after being kidnapped on 15 February while walking near a soccer field in the Santa Fe neighborhood. Her vehicle was found abandoned near the abduction site. Eight days after last contact with the victim, on 22 February, her body was found bound and in a state of decomposition in sugarcane fields between La Lima and San Manuel, Cortes, with three gunshot wounds. Police subsequently arrested two suspected MS-13 members following a chase in San Pedro Sula during which the suspects' vehicle overturned. The suspects were charged with aggravated femicide, kidnapping, robbery with violence, and illegal firearm possession, and sentenced to pre-trial detention. The suspects also hold a vast criminal history related to those types of crimes, one of them having three pending arrest warrants who confessed to them being the two perpetrators involved in the attack and their history of similar crimes. The police's investigation is not discarding the possibly of the killing being carried out after the victim ended a possible romantic relationship with another suspected member of the MS-13. The perpetrators might face life in prison due to the gravity of the charges. 1 fatality.