Caught in Honduras drugs crossfire

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Stephen Sackur joins a navy patrol crew in Honduras trying to stop the smuggling of cocaine to the United States.

Honduras is in the grip of a drugs war with US drug enforcement agents helping local forces fight organised gangs, who traffic tons of cocaine destined for the United States, as HARDtalk's Stephen Sackur reports.

The deep bullet wound in Hilda Lezama's thigh is a livid pointer to Honduras's unwanted status as a new frontline in America's war on drugs.

For all of her 53 years, Hilda Lezama has lived in Ahuas, a settlement of wooden homes built on stilts, close to the fast-flowing Patuca river in the remote Mosquitia region of eastern Honduras.

She was shot in a US-led counter-narcotics raid on a riverboat two months ago.

Four other local people, including two local women, were killed in the airborne attack which involved US drug enforcement agents and Honduran troops.

"We were returning from a trip down-river with the fishermen," Hilda recalled.

"We travelled at night to avoid the heat. We heard the helicopters above us, but we couldn't see them.

"They could have let us dock and then searched the boat, but instead they shot us. Maybe they were thinking we were someone else."

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Caught in Honduras drugs crossfire