Zelaya’s Plane Barred From Landing in Honduras

Ousted President Manuel Zelaya made an attempt to return home to Honduras, but he ended up doing a flyover on Sunday when authorities blocked his plane from landing at the Tegucigalpa airport. On the runway, Zelaya supporters clashed with military and police forces. At least one person was reported killed.

The New York Times:

Soldiers stood in formation at one end of the runway and in trenches dug into a hillside, firing into the air and setting off tear gas, while a helicopter hovered overhead.

As hundreds of people tried to break down the fences to enter the airport grounds, soldiers fired into the crowd.

A least one person was killed and two were badly wounded, a medic and emergency services at the airport said, according to Reuters.

[…] Tensions were high throughout the region. Mr. Micheletti said that Nicaraguan troops had been observed near the border with Honduras, which he called a provocation. He called on President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua to withdraw the troops and vowed to defend Honduran territory.

But Mr. Ortega of Nicaragua denied in a radio interview that any troops were massed and American officials in Washington said they lacked any information of Nicaraguan troop movements.

The presidents of Equador, Paraguay and Argentina as well as Jose Miguel Insulza, the secretary general of the O.A.S, were flying in a separate plane and they had plans to land only if Mr. Zelaya’s plane landed safely. If not, they were going on to El Salvador.

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