Climate Change and Gang-Linked Displacement in Honduras

There is no single moment when rural life in Honduras collapses. It frays. Crops fail one season, then again the next. Food becomes uncertain. Bills stack up. People start to leave quietly, long before anyone calls it displacement.

Much of Honduras sits inside the Central American dry corridor, where drought has intensified steadily since the mid-2010s. For small-scale farmers growing maize and beans, the impact has been severe. These crops are essential, not optional. The corridor is expanding by roughly 1.5% annually, and by 2040, up to 70% of the country could fall within it. Agricultural and livestock productivity may decline by nearly 20%. With poverty already affecting 71% of the population, there is little room to absorb these losses. Each year, between 1.9 and 3.2 million people struggle with food insecurity.

Climate shocks are nothing new here. Honduras has been hit by more than 220 extreme weather events over recent decades, resulting in approximately 35,000 deaths and up to $18 billion in damages. Hurricanes Eta and Iota displaced over 200,000 people in 2020 alone. Yet drought does not shock, it exhausts. It forces families to borrow, sell land, or pull children from school before they ever pack their bags.

Migration begins locally. People move within their regions, hoping to stabilise income without cutting social ties. As Professor María José Méndez Gutiérrez explains, this reflects Honduras’s political economy. When agriculture fails, families rely on mobility. Gang violence, in the form of extortion, threats and territorial control, often shapes where people can safely go. Climate pressure determines when staying is no longer possible.

Internal movement funnels families toward cities like San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa. There, climate stress collides with gang rule. Informal settlements on the city edges absorb newcomers. They are also where gangs hold the most power. MS-13 and Barrio 18 divide neighbourhoods into rigid zones. Small errors, clothes, words, movement, can be fatal. Displaced families face higher risk because they lack local knowledge.

Gang influence is no longer urban. After natural disasters, such as Hurricanes Eta and Iota, many families lost their homes and moved to higher ground or informal settlements that were under gang-control. These climate-driven relocations allowed gangs to expand extortion networks and tighten control over mobility. According to Professor Gutiérrez, relocation reshapes where violence operates rather than removing it. The map changes. The danger does not.

Climate stress also feeds gang economies. Honduras has seen this pattern before. After Hurricane Mitch in 1998, mass displacement created meeting grounds where deported youth gangs expanded rapidly. Today, prolonged drought is producing similar conditions. When farming collapses, young people lose one of the few available livelihoods. Gangs, despite their brutality, can look like employers. They offer income, protection, and status. Professor Gutiérrez describes gang violence itself as a form of labour, with gangs acting as ‘equal-opportunity employers’ in contexts of deep exclusion.

The impacts are uneven. Women, children and elderly people bear the heaviest costs. Hunger increases care burdens. Migration raises exposure to coercion and abuse. Gang structures are intensely masculine, mirroring wider gender inequalities. Women linked to gang members face strict control, leaving without permission can be fatal. Honduras’s femicide rates reflect this reality. Femicide rates in Honduras in 2023 were 7.7 per 100,000, the 8th highest globally. Yet there are contradictions. Some women join gangs seeking protection after sexual violence elsewhere. Inside gangs, rape may be prohibited, creating a distorted sense of safety the state has failed to provide.

Children are especially vulnerable. Gangs view them as recruitable labour. Families see migration as a shield. The numbers are stark. From 2004 to 2018, violence forced nearly 247,000 people to flee within Honduras. In 77% of cases, households left after family members were attacked, and gangs carried out almost half of those acts. Displacement disrupts lives. 27% of families are separated. Education is interrupted for 38% of displaced students, while 7% never resume schooling.

State failure binds climate and violence together. Corruption, low police pay and blurred ties between gangs and officials hollow out protection. Some officers openly refer to neighbourhoods as gang-owned. Extortion money leaks into politics and policing. Mass incarceration offers spectacle, not solutions. Honduras’s housing deficit, over 1.45 million units, pushes displaced families into overcrowded, exposed settlements where risk multiplies.

This is not a story of climate change on one side and gangs on the other. It is one system. Drought strips livelihoods. Migration increases exposure. Violence closes exits. Until Honduras addresses food security, urban planning, and governance together, displacement will remain the country’s most reliable export, and its most costly one.

Further information and opportunities to engage with organisations working in this area are listed below:
https://www.christianaid.org.uk/our-work/where-we-work/honduras
https://cwsglobal.org/cws-in-central-america/
https://unrefugees.org.uk/learn-more/news/refugee-stories/in-honduras-climate-change-is-one-more-factor-sparking-displacement/

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