The Northern Triangle of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador

The Northern Triangle of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

The Northern Triangle is a term used by the United States and Organization of American States to refer collectively to these three states located between Mexico and Nicaragua. The graphic in figure 1 provides a visual reference of these three countries and their capitals, which are

approximately 200 kilometres from each other. The countries share an economic integration and a host of psychosocial, economic, cultural, political, and security challenges that have driven hundreds of thousands of residents into seeking asylum in North and South America as well as Europe. International observers and interventionists ascribe the causes as a collection of psychosocial-cultural

breakdowns that include economic malaise, political corruption, human rights violations, crime, and climate change, amongst other reasons.

While the underlying issues are not unique to these countries, they are most distinctly expressed in a manner that has become an intractable violent social conflict. The USA’s Council on Foreign Relations estimates that more than 2,000,000 people have fled the northern triangle since 2014. In Honduras and El Salvador, the rates of femicide (killing of women and girls) are among the highest in the world. Honduras is the deadliest of the three countries with a homicide rate of 38 murders per 100,000 residents annually since 2020, and Guatemala is the next deadliest, averaging between 250 – 280 murders per month in 2024. Approximately 95% of these murders go unpunished by dysfunctional systems of justice. Some of the critical areas of the Northern Triangle, also known as ‘red areas’, are in effect conflict zones and exhibit high levels of violence and criminality, large numbers of injuries caused by firearms, physical and sexual abuse, torture, extortion, kidnappings, forced recruitment, curfews (unofficial), confinement, invisible borders, a population in fear of violent death or crime, lack of state rule, corruption and impunity, limited access to health and other basic services, and limited access to protection and justice. Significant portions of the population have been forced into displacement to escape threats and violence, moving within the state, requesting asylum, or resorting to irregular immigration.  Over the past half-century, the type of psychosocial-political dysfunction described in the previous sections has resulted in the rise of criminalised societies that challenge the recognised UN state for power and influence in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. These three states geographically constitute key transit points for transnational drug trafficking. The leaders, members, supporters, and beneficiaries of these vast, net-centric criminal societies have penetrated state institutions, as evidenced by frequent cases of collusion between organized crime and high-level politicians.