Honduras plans to buy drones from Ukraine for border policing and anti-drug operations, President Nasry Asfura told AFP on Monday.
The right-wing leader was in Kiev on Friday to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky, who offered to provide the Central American nation with military technology, particularly drones.
During his meeting with Asfura, who US President Donald Trump endorsed in the Honduran presidential elections last November, the Ukrainian leader sought to tighten security cooperation between both countries.
Ukraine relies heavily on drones to attack Russia in the war that began in 2022 with Moscow’s invasion of its pro-Western neighbor.
“We are talking about drones to protect our borders, to efficiently guard our borders, to fight against organized crime with high-tech equipment,” Asfura said in Panama City at a meeting of the Organization of American States.
Asfura is also a political ally of former President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was extradited to the United States and convicted of drug trafficking and weapons charges in 2024. Trump pardoned him a year later.
Asfura added that the drones could also be used for agriculture, without elaborating.
Honduras has been convulsed by years of violence between narcotrafficking clans, street gangs like MS-13 and Barrio 18, and corrupt security forces. The homicide rate is 24 killings per 100,000 inhabitants, almost four times the global average.
On May 21, 19 people were massacred in a farming village in northern Honduras where armed groups have long fought over palm plantations and drug trafficking routes.
Presumed narcotraffickers killed five police the same day near the border with Guatemala.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
