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Tegucigalpa, Jan 12 (IANS/EFE) Eight people, four of them children, were murdered in the Caribbean province of Colon, the Honduran government said. The victims, residents of the village of El Regadero, were hacked to death by four men who arrived at the scene in a single vehicle, Security Ministry spokesman Hector Ivan Mejia told reporters in Tegucigalpa. He identified the victims only as two men, two women and four children, citing a preliminary report from police. El Regadero lies about 8 km from the town of Saba in an area of palm-oil plantations, Mejia noted. Some 50 people have died in Colon during the last three years in a conflict pitting landless peasants against private security guards employed by the palm-oil barons. An accord signed almost a year ago by the Honduran government, the plantation owners and an organization representing the peasants called for more than 4,000 hectares of land to be distributed among landless families. The agreement is yet to be implemented.
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