A/HRC/35/23/Add.1 2015, the Government reported that 127 persons had died since the land conflict started in 2009, including farmers, security guards and others. 42 In 2016 alone, 11 human rights defenders had been killed and 9 left the country owing to attacks and intimidation.43 The Secretary of Security reported three such killings in 2016. 58. In most cases, the perpetrators have not been identified or prosecuted. In a 2014 report on impunity in the Bajo Aguán, it was noted that prosecutors and police had failed to perform the most basic investigative steps necessary to identify and prosecute suspects and had not followed criminal forensic procedures to preserve the crime scene, collect evidence, conduct autopsies and search for the missing. 44 59. While the Public Prosecutor’s Office established in 2014 the Special Unit for the investigation of violent deaths in Bajo Aguán to address a backlog of 147 pending cases, impunity levels remain alarmingly high and transparency concerns persist. 45 F. Refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons 60. The impact of gang violence and organized crime in certain regions of the country is leading to the forced migration of thousands of persons who try to avoid extortion, forced integration to gangs, sexual violence and killings. 61. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, at the end of 2014, there were an estimated 29,400 internally displaced persons in Honduras. 46 The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that, between 2004 and 2014, 174,000 persons had been affected by internal displacement owing to violence. 47 In a 2015 study, it was reported that persecution and insecurity had been the determining factors of displacement for 67.9 per cent of internally displaced households, particularly threat, murder, injury, extortion, insecurity and sexual violence. 48 62. The impact of violence is also evident in the growing number of Honduran asylum seekers and refugees in neighbouring countries, Mexico and the United States. UNHCR reported a 1,153 per cent increase in the number of asylum applications from — 810 to 10,146 — between 2012 and 2014, and a 59 per cent increase in the number of refugees, from 2,613 to 4,159, in the same period.49 63. Migrants on route to northern countries face numerous risks and many end up as victims of trafficking networks that subject them to kidnapping, torture, mutilation or murder. In recent years, around 400 Honduran migrants were reported missing on their way to the United States.50 Three mass graves were found in Mexico between 2010 and 2012, which contained the remains of dozens of migrants who had been in transit including from Honduras. The relatives of the victims reported delays in the repatriation of the remains and difficulties in gaining access to justice. 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 12 See Situation of Human Rights in Honduras, p. 69. See www.fidh.org/es/temas/defensores-de-derechos-humanos/honduras-asesinato-de-fernandoaleman-banegas-hijo-de-la-defensora; and Amnesty International, report No. AMR37/5015/2016, available from www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr37/5015/2016/en/. See www.hrw.org/report/2014/02/12/there-are-no-investigations-here/impunity-killings-and-otherabuses-bajo-aguan, pp. 3, 21 and 57. See www.omct.org/es/human-rights-defenders/urgent-interventions/honduras/2016/04/d23697/. See Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Global Overview 2015 (Geneva, May 2015), pp. 1619. Available from www.internal-displacement.org/assets/library/Media/201505-Global-Overview2015/20150506-global-overview-2015-en.pdf. See UNHCR, Protection and Solutions Strategy for the Northern Triangle of Central America 20162018 (Geneva), p. 6. Available from http://reporting.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/Protection%20and%20Solutions%20Strategy%20for%20t he%20Northern%20Triangle%20of%20Central%20America%202016-2018.pdf. See A/HRC/32/25/Add.4, p. 7. See Situation of Human Rights in Honduras, pp. 64-65. Ibid., para. 146.