Nicaragua says all drug-runner airfields destroyed

Nicaragua's military said Friday all clandestine airfields used by cartels to run drugs to the United States were destroyed and steps taken to make sure they would not reopen. The clearing operation was part of a policy of building a "containment wall around narcotrafficking," the chief of the armed forces, General Julio Aviles, said after presiding over a day honoring the country's military. Aviles said it has been a couple of years since the last airfield, one on the northern Caribbean coast, was operational. Now, he said, there are no more plane landings "like in other countries to deposit drugs and then transport them" to North America. The general said the military had firm control over Nicaragua's air, sea and land borders to prevent a return of smuggled drugs. He added that between 2002 and 2015, the military had seized 175 tons of drugs and busted several criminal organizations. Police data portray Nicaragua as the safest country in Central America, with a homicide rate of 8.6 per 100,000 inhabitants. That contrasts starkly with neighboring Honduras, which is rated as the deadliest peacetime country in the world with a rate of 68 homicides per 100,000 people.