I missed this story while I was feeling particularly ill from my my tooth removal, but it’s important enough story that even late as it is to highlight this story, the story still needs highlighting.

From Pink News’ Six trans women killed in Honduras in two months:

LGBT campaigners are calling on Honduran authorities to fully investigate the murders of six transgender women in just 60 days.

According to Human Rights Watch, the first death was on November 29th and the latest took place on January 17th.

The women were murdered on the streets or in their homes in the capital, Tegucigalpa, and in the cities of Comayagüela and San Pedro Sula.

The attacks ranged from gunshots to setting the victims on fire.

Human Rights Watch stated on January 31st that there’s been zero arrests — they are calling on Honduras to investigate murders of the transgender women.

Blabberando reported that United States to assist in investigation of transgender killings in Honduras. Blabberando earlier reported that U.S. Ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Lllorens, had made the Honduran authorities responsible for the proper investigation of these crimes:

Image: U.S. Ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Lllorens[T]he United States Embassy in Honduras has taken the highly unusual step of releasing an official statement asking the Honduran government and it’s authorities to investigate a number of recent murders committed against members of the LGBT community in Honduras.

Hugo Llorens (pictured), the U.S. Ambassador to Honduras, sat down to talk yesterday with La Prensa and was asked about the murders and the official statement from his office. Here is what he said:

“The gay community in many countries, including mine, is very vulnerable to discrimination and harassment. It’s not an unique problem to Honduras, but it is worrisome that the five murders have occurred within a period of a little month than a month.  That’s why we have asked the authorities in charge to apply the extent of the law [and] to see the situation as a threat to human rights.”

Blabberando also added, in personal commentary:

[I]n my years covering LGBT rights in Latin America, I could not remember the last time an U.S. ambassador had spoken up specifically on the issue of human rights violations against a Latin American country’s LGBT population.

Well, tonight, add the voice of a sitting United States president to that list. And words do matter.

…As for Honduras: Following today’s statement by United States President Barack Obama, the Honduran president Porfirio Lobo Sosa held a press conference today and announced that the United States Department of State had committed to send trained personnel to investigate the recent number of transgender murders, even as he took the opportunity to play down the number of transgender murders.

Words do matter, as well as the lives of the six Honduran transgender women. I’m sad at the losses of those women, and heartened by the U.S. response these women’s killings.

The unsolved killings of six transgender women — killed over just a two-month span — cannot be acceptable as a final outcome. The homicides need to be solved.