[antilt]

Players Shot Dead At Honduras Football Match

10:04am Sunday October 31, 2010
David Williams

Hooded gunmen have shot dead 14 people as they played a friendly football match in Honduras.



Police officers at the scene in Honduras

Police said between five and eight attackers opened fire on the players, killing 10 instantly. Four more victims died later in hospital. The massacre in the country's second city, San Pedro Sula, could be the result of gang wars, deputy security minister Armando Calidonio said. Police commissioner Leonel Sauceda added: "There were 14 of them at a football field in the Felipe Zelaya housing development. "Some guys showed up and started firing at them. Ten of them were killed instantly."



Gunmen opened fire on the sports field

The remaining four taken to the city's Mario Catarino Rivas Hospital died shortly after arrival, he added. Honduras is set to become the country with the world's highest murder rate. A government report records a rate of 78.8 killings per 100,000 people during 2010. Battles between street gangs and drugs gangs have led to a sharp escalation in violent crime in recent years. San Pedro Sula is in a region where drug gangs are known to refine cocaine before it heads to the US.