Photo: VCG
TEGUCIGALPA, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez on Monday announced the creation of a mixed government-private sector commission to help stamp out violence at football matches in the country.
The move comes after four football fans were killed over the weekend, and several players injured, in violent pre-match clashes between supporters of rival teams.
"We have to get these criminals out of the cheerleading squads. Everyone guilty of these killings is going to get caught, if not today, then tomorrow," Hernandez said at a press conference.
In one video posted online of Saturday's brawls, a group of fans is seen kicking a man already on the ground and beating him with sticks.
The melees broke out after fans threw rocks and bottles at a bus bringing players from one of the teams, Motagua, with three people suffering minor facial injuries.
Fighting led football officials to suspend the fifth game of the national league's opening tournament, between Motagua and rivals Olimpia.
The secretary of the National Professional Football League of Honduras (LNFPH), Salomon Galindo, also announced a meeting of the heads of the league's ten teams to adopt the measures needed to prevent another fatal incident.
Between 2003 and 2019, at least 50 people have been killed in match-related crimes in Honduras, according to national Human Rights Commissioner Roberto Herrera.
