Homicides weren’t the only dark spot in Monday’s report. Thefts have more than doubled across Costa Rica in the last five years and car thefts were also slightly up over 2014.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United States has a moral and historic responsibility to help reduce violence in Central America, but the region’s governments must do their part too, a top State Department official said last Thursday during a conference on the Central America Regional Security Initiative (CARSI).
Facing violence and criminal impunity in their countries of origin, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people have become the latest face of Central American displacement, and they have turned to Costa Rica for refuge.
WASHINGTON, D. C. – Cristina Equizábal, a senior fellow at El Salvador’s National Foundation for Development (FUNDE), visited Costa Rica earlier this month – and was shocked to learn that local police had uncovered an enormous cache of M-16s, Uzis, AK-47s and other weapons in a suburb of San José.
“You can have a million soldiers at the border, and you’ll be shocked how many people will still get into the United States. That’s why investing in our economy is better than concentrating exclusively on security. The more we develop Central America, the better it’ll be for the United States," says Guatemalan foreign minister.
Mourners sobbed as coffins holding the remains of Miss Honduras, 19-year-old María José Alvarado, and her sister Sofía Trinidad Alvarado, 23, were lowered into the ground at a cemetery in the northwestern town of Santa Barbara.
Central America, like much of the world, has a high femicide rate, as well as overall violence against women. Of the 25 countries that have “very high femicide rates,” more than half are in Latin America, according to the Small Arms Survey, conducted in 2012.
“I left for the U.S., but halfway there I had the accident. I was riding above with some friends on the roof, and when we were arriving to the first immigration station, I was climbing down and all of the sudden a gust of wind came out of nowhere. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, I was underneath the train."
