John Moore / Getty Images

John Moore / Getty Images

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement security contractor carries chains for Honduran immigration detainees before their deportation flight to San Pedro Sula, Honduras, on Thursday.

A security contractor hired by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), checks the mouth of a Honduran immigration detainee before a deportation flight to San Pedro Sula, Honduras, on Feb. 28, 2013, in Mesa, Ariz. ICE operates four to five flights per week from Mesa to Central America, deporting hundreds of undocumented immigrants detained in Western states of the U.S. With the possibility of federal budget sequestration, ICE released 303 immigration detainees in the past week from detention centers throughout Arizona. More than 2,000 immigration detainees remain in ICE custody in the state. Most detainees remain in custody for several weeks before they are deported to their home country, while others remain for longer periods while their immigration cases work through the courts.  Read the full story.

John Moore / Getty Images

Immigrant detainees walk through the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility on Thursday.

Orlando Sierra / AFP - Getty Images

An Army soldier stands guard on a bus in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Sept. 28, 2012. Honduras has the world's highest murder rate, at 92 deaths per 100,000 people, according to the United Nations.

Associated Press reports — Honduras' government is assigning soldiers to ride buses in urban areas as a way to free police officers for foot patrols in neighborhoods afflicted by crime and insecurity.

President Porfirio Lobo says there will be at least two soldiers on each bus on 20 routes in the capital and in the city of San Pedro Sula. He says the move is "in response to outcry from various sectors of society."

Officials say the deployment will eventually extend throughout Honduras.

On Tuesday, the government extended a nearly year-old national state of emergency for six months, allowing troop deployments in civilian areas.

The new operation is the second time Honduran soldiers have been placed on public buses, which are frequently targeted by gang members who rob and extort passengers and drivers.

Reuters

A soldier boards a public bus in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Sept. 28.

EPA

Honduran President Porfirio Lobo, lower right, attends a ceremony for military members to be deployed on public transport buses in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Sept. 28.

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Jorge Cabrera / Reuters

Riot police detain an injured peasant farmer as they evict protesters near the Supreme Court in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on August 21, 2012.

Honduran riot police fired tear gas to remove farmers who had set up barricades and burned tires to block a main avenue near the Supreme Court in the capital Tegucigalpa on Tuesday, Reuters reports.

The protesters were demanding that a decree that would have the effect of disarming farmers in Bajo Aguan be ruled unconstitutional by the court.

The Honduran Congress approved a law earlier this month prohibiting the public possession and transportation of guns in Colon, a region of the country where drug trafficking and other agrarian conflicts are blamed for the killings of more than 60 people in the past three years.

At least 20 of the farmers were detained after attacking policemen with rocks during the protest, local media reported.

Previously on PhotoBlog:

• Farmers seize land from one of the wealthiest men in Honduras
• Hunt for drug traffickers terrorizes Honduras village

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A girl cries as her home and neighboring shanty town is forcefully dismantled after the Honduras government claimed the settlement illegal in Tegucigalpa on July 20, 2012.

By Spencer Platt / Getty Images

Land disputes are becoming increasingly frequent in Honduras. This trend alarms the nation's business class and sows fear of increased political violence. In a nation where 72 percent of the poorest landowners hold only 11.6 percent of cultivated land, tensions are rising as the poor have few places to go and little opportunities for productive employment.

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A man dismantles his shack during an eviction on July 20.

A woman dismantles her shack as military personnel move through during an eviction on July 20.

A woman is carried after fainting as her home and neighborhood are forcefully dismantled in a shanty town eviction on July 20.

Residents dismantle their shack during an eviction on July 20.

Honduran army personnel watch as residents dismantle their shacks during an eviction on July 20.

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Rodrigo Abd / AP

Accompanied by son Juan Carlos, 13, Jose Maria, 60, strips the bark from a tree trunk that will be used in the construction of a home in La Confianza, Honduras.

AP photographer Rodrigo Abd writes:

La Confianza, Honduras, is a city developed from land seized by small-scale farmers from one of Honduras' richest men. The collection of tin-and-wood shacks boasts a health center, a school, a meeting hall, and a store. The land seizure has spawned a violent land conflict between the farmers and owner, billionaire Miguel Facusse, that has killed at least 63 people, mostly peasants, in the last three years in the Bajo Aguan Valley. 

Rodrigo Abd / AP

Men drive horse-drawn carts to collect the harvested fruits of the African palm tree on the plantation in La Confianza.

Rodrigo Abd / AP

Axel collects the harvested fruits of the African palm tree onto his horse-drawn cart on the plantation in La Confianza.

Rodrigo Abd / AP

Women wash clothes on the river banks near La Confianza, Honduras.

Rodrigo Abd / AP

Men work together to construct a home from the ground up in La Confianza.

Rodrigo Abd / AP

A boy draws on a dry erase board during a civics class for adults in La Confianza.

Rodrigo Abd / AP

Enrique Martinez, 17, with a rifle slung over his back, patrols an area of La Confianza.

See more coverage of Honduras in PhotoBlog. 

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Rodrigo Abd / AP

Clara Wood Rivas, 59, whose son Antonie Brooks Symore, 14, was killed during a drug raid that appears to have mistakenly targeted civilians in a remote jungle area of Honduras, killing four riverboat passengers and injuring four others.

The Associated Press reports — AHUAS, Honduras — A fearsome rattle of gunfire from the sky. The roar of helicopters descending on a tiny, Honduran town. And the sound of commandos speaking in English as they battered down doors and detained locals in the hunt for a drug trafficker.

Rodrigo Abd / AP

An aerial view of the Mosquitia region near the remote community of Ahuas, Honduras, on May 21, 2012.

Villagers say the drug bust that left four passengers of a riverboat dead after helicopters mistakenly fired on civilians continued into the predawn hours when commandos, including Americans, raided their town.

Mexico's drug war: No sign of 'light at the end of the tunnel'

Heavily armed Honduran police in at least two helicopters landed and took off numerous times while agents searched homes and detained several people in the village on the banks of a river deep in Honduras' Mosquitia region, named for the Miskito Indians. In the end, enraged residents torched the home of the town's suspected drug trafficker in retaliation for the fatalities on the river.

Central American migrants protest targeting by Mexico gangs

The May 11 shooting and subsequent raid raises questions about what role, if any, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents who were on the helicopters played in the events described by villagers. The DEA has repeatedly said its agents on the mission, which included two U.S. helicopters, acted only in an advisory role to their Honduran National Police counterparts and did not use their weapons. Read the full story.

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Rodrigo Abd / AP

Clara Wood Rivas, right, accompanied by her daughter July, 18, mourns in front of the tomb of her son in Ahuas on May 22, 2012.

Rodrigo Abd / AP

Honduran soldiers patrol in Ahuas on May 22, 2012. Following the raid on May 11 Honduran police narcotics forces and men speaking English spent hours searching the small town for a suspected drug trafficker, according to villagers.

The burnt house of an alleged drug dealer know as 'El Renco', one of four homes burned after the raid. "The family and friends of the victims burned the homes because of the narcos," villager Hilaria Zavala said. "This whole mess was their fault ... because of them, we all had to pay."

Rodrigo Abd / AP

Wilmer Lucas Walter, 14, rests while recovering in a public hospital from the wounds caused during the attack. On May 11, Wilmer and more than a dozen others dove from a riverboat into the water for cover from Honduran police, who say they were hitting drug traffickers who fired first. Four died.

Rodrigo Abd / AP

A dog bites meat drying outside a house in Ahuas on May 22, 2012. Ahuas Mayor Lucio Baquedano, who said all the shooting victims were innocents, said that there is a drug trafficking cell in his town and that the number of clandestine landing strips is not only increasing, but getting closer to populated areas and putting more uninvolved people at risk.

Roberto Escobar / EPA

Debris is seen after a fire in a market in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Feb. 18. The fire started in Colon Market, and spread to San Isidro Market, adjacent to Colon.

A fire has swept through street markets in the capital of Honduras, a nation traumatized just five days ago by a fire that killed 358 people at a prison.

Authorities say 11 people were injured and about 1,800 stalls burned, but there were no deaths.

--Reported by the Associated Press

Related content: PhotoBlog posts from the recent prison fire in Honduras

Jorge Dan Lopez / Reuters

Workers of Comayaguela market carry a fire hose as they help firefighters try to extinguish a fire at the market in Tegucigalpa, Feb. 18. No deaths have been reported, but 500 stalls were destroyed after the massive fire broke out at the market.

Jorge Dan Lopez / Reuters

People help to evacuate a man affected by smoke from a fire which broke out at Comayaguela market in Tegucigalpa Feb. 18.

Jorge Dan Lopez / Reuters

A cloud of smoke rises as people evacuate during a fire at Comayaguela market in Tegucigalpa, Feb. 18.

Jorge Dan Lopez / Reuters

A man walks through smoke after a fire broke out at Comayaguela market in Tegucigalpa, Feb. 18.

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Estbean Felix / AP

Two men prepare graves for their family members; inmates Renan and Jose Martinez, who died in a prison fire this week, in Comayagua, Honduras on Feb. 17.

Honduras came under international pressure on Friday to fix its broken prison system and allow an independent inquiry into a jailhouse blaze that occurred in Comayagua this week that killed more than 350 inmates, many burned alive in their cells.

The blaze, the third major prison fire in Honduras in the last decade, has ramped up scrutiny of the Central American nation's corrupt judicial system. Almost half the inmates in its overcrowded jails have not been convicted and are awaiting trial, according to data from the Supreme Court of Honduras.

Prison guards used cell phones to take pictures of surviving inmates to show them to relatives who turned up asking to see their loved ones. But some were still left without answers.

-- Reuters contributed to this blog post

Related links:

• Honduras pressured to fix prisons after deadly fire
• US gangs a major force in Central American prisons

Estbean Felix / AP

A prison inmate being treated for injuries sustained in the Comayagua, Honduras prison fire, looks out a hospital window on Feb. 17.

Jorge Dan Lopez / Reuters

Felix Canales reacts in front of the coffin of his friend Oswaldo Ortega Varela, 28, who died in the Feb. 14 Comayagua prison blaze on Feb. 17.

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Orlando Sierra / AFP - Getty Images

Relatives of inmates await outside the National Prison of Comayagua compound in Comayagua, Honduras, on Feb. 15, where at least 357 prisioners were killed and scores injured when fire overnight tore through the prison in central Honduras, the Central American country's prisons director said. The prison originally held around 850 prisoners.

Reuters

An injured man is attended to at Escuela hospital in the capital Tegucigalpa on Feb. 15, after a blaze that began late on Tuesday night at a prison in Comayagua, about 75 kilometers (45 miles) north of the capital. A fire that swept through a prison in Honduras overnight has killed at least 357 people, the attorney general's office of the Central American nation said on Wednesday.

Gustavo Amador / EPA

Injured inmates are being evacuated after a fire broke out at a prision in the town of Comayagua, Honduras.

Gustavo Amador / EPA

Firemen work at the site after a fire that broke out at a prison in the town of Comayagua, Honduras on Feb. 15. Many of the prisoners were trapped in their cells as the building burned around, according to officials.

Orlando Sierra / AFP - Getty Images

Relatives of inmates awaiting outside the perimeter fence throw stones at soldiers on guard at the National Prison compound in Comayagua, Honduras, on Feb. 15,

Fernando Antonio / AP

Inmates' relatives clash with police outside a prison after a deadly fire in Comayagua, Honduras, 90 miles (140 kilometers) north of the capital, Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on Feb. 15. At least 300 inmates were killed and 21 are injured, according to authorities.

 From msnbc.com staff and news services:

 TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- A massive fire swept through a prison in Honduras and killed close to 360 people, including many inmates trapped inside their cells, officials said on Wednesday.

Reuters reported that the attorney general's office said at least 357 people died in the blaze that began late on Tuesday night at the prison in Comayagua, about 45 miles north of the capital Tegucigalpa.Soldiers, police and anxious relatives surrounded the Comayagua prison, which housed more than 800 inmates -- well above its capacity. Click here to read more on the story as authorities try to determine the cause of the fire in Honduras.

Orlando Sierra / AFP - Getty Images

A Honduran soldier, member of the presidential guard, clashes with demonstrators protesting against the murder of colleagues in Tegucigalpa on Monday. In the past two years, and under the government of Porfirio Lobo, 17 journalists have been killed in Honduras.

Orlando Sierra / AFP - Getty Images

Journalists lie and sit on the ground in front of the presidential palace while protesting against the murder of colleagues in Tegucigalpa on Monday.

Orlando Sierra / AFP - Getty Images

A journalist with his mouth taped takes part in a a protest against the murder of colleagues in Tegucigalpa on Monday.

From this story about the killing of radio news host Luz Marina Paz:

Human rights advocates say at least 23 journalists have been killed in Honduras since 2007, many for angering organized criminals and drug traffickers with their work. The Miami-based Inter American Press Association said Paz, who also owned her own business, had received death threats from criminals to whom she had refused to pay extortion.

"These new attacks are part of a campaign of violence and insecurity in general, and of threats and intimidation against editors and journalists in particular that we have been denouncing in Honduras," said the president of the group's committee on press freedom, Gustavo Mohme.

Almost half of the cocaine that reaches the United States is now offloaded somewhere along the country's coast and heavily forested interior, according to U.S. and Honduran estimates.

Related stories:

• Assailants open fire on Honduras newspaper office
• Honduran journalists face 'growing threat'
• Honduras bans motorcycle passengers in anti-crime move

Orlando Sierra / AFP - Getty Images

A woman helplessly watches as her home is demolished in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on Oct. 27.

Orlando Sierra / AFP - Getty Images

A woman cries in front of a police officer as her shack is dismantled in Tegucigalpa on Oct. 27.

Agence France Presse reports: 

Human rights organizations described as inhumane the eviction of 120 families and the destruction by court order of 52 houses on El Estiquin hill, on the southern outskirts of the Honduran capital. The evicted people, mostly low-income single mothers, demanded that President Porfirio Lobo provide them with a decent place to live.