Wednesday, November 19, 2014 Police in Honduras have detained two men for questioning as they search for the country’s Miss World entrant, who was reported missing a few days before she was due to leave for London to compete in the pageant. Miss Honduras winner María José Alvarado, 19, and her sister Sofía Alvarado, 23, went missing on 13 November when they were seen leaving a party in a car without a licence plate. Police spokesman Jose Coello said officers were questioning Plutarco Ruiz, the boyfriend of Sofía, and Aris Maldonado. The two are believed to have been the last people to see the young women before they disappeared. “Both are being questioned as part of the investigation into the disappearance of [María José Alvarado] and her sister. We hope to establish what role they may have played,” Coello said. María José, who was voted Miss Honduras in April, went missing on Thursday night along with Sofía Alvarado after they attended a party about 20 minutes’ drive from the family home in the northern city of Santa Barbara. María José had been due to travel to London on Wednesday in preparation for the Miss World pageant next month. The disappearance of the women led to police setting up checkpoints and carrying out patrols in and around Santa Barbara and neighbouring towns. Authorities have insisted that hopes of finding the two young women alive remain high. “Nobody has asked for a ransom for their liberation and there have been no bodies found,” Inspector Vicente Reyes said in a phone interview between taking testimonies related to the case. “These are strong signs that they are still alive.” There have also been patrols along parts of the Honduran border with Guatemala. “This is a big operation,” said Reyes, who is in charge of the Santa Barbara side of the investigations. “She is a representative of the country.” Reyes said witness accounts of the two women leaving the party with three men had not been confirmed. Kidnapping is rampant in Honduras and the murder rate is the worst in the world. According to the independent Violence Observatory, Santa Barbara’s homicide rate in 2013 stood at 83 murders per 10,000 inhabitants, the same as the national average. The rate in New York City was four while in London it was less than one. Violent crime in Honduras is routinely attributed to feuds between the different street gangs that exercise reigns of terror over the territories they control. No gang link has emerged so far in the disappearance of Alvarado and her sister, a primary school teacher. “I want the world to know that they are good people and they always thought others were like them,” said Cory Alvarado, the two missing women’s elder sister. “They were honest and happy and trusting.” Cory stressed that her siblings were very close and spent a lot of time together, though María José was more reserved. As well as competing in beauty contests and modelling, she was studying computing at a local private college. The college organised a march through Santa Barbara on Tuesday evening calling for the women’s return. Cory last saw her youngest sister when she was leaving the house to get into the car sent to take her to a nearby spa resort where a party was being held to celebrate the birthday of Sofía’s boyfrined. The beauty queen had said that Sofía was in the car, though nobody in the family saw her. “We can only pray that they are OK,” Cory said
Posted on: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 07:59:45 +0000
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