SHOCKING images offer a glimpse inside the terrifying Honduran gangs feared to be infiltrating migrant caravans – and the misery they cause.

Donald Trump controversially insisted the US-bound groups are filled with the merciless mobsters, and sent nearly 6,000 troops to the border to keep them from entering.

15 One gang member holds up bags of marijuana. He is one of the many members that terrorise the city - forcing families to flee Credit: Reuters

But one former cop told how he had no other choice but to join one of the caravans and flee after his sons were held at gunpoint by the brutal killers.

Known only as Ivan, he said he had moved homes so many times to escape the violence in his home of San Pedro Sula, Honduras – but it was impossible to get away.

And when his young sons Yostin, 15 and Julio, 13, were threatened with death if the didn't join a local gang, he decided enough was enough and fled to America.

The terrified family joined the vast group of people travelling from the violence-ridden city after hiding out at friend's houses.

15 A member of MS-13 street gang looks out from a house as police patrol the street outside, in San Pedro Sula, Honduras Credit: Reuters

15 A woman cries at a crime scene after two men were killed Credit: Reuters

15 The body of a man killed in gang violence lies in a pick-up truck

Their motives are similar to other families in the caravan and are a reminder of the influence the gangs called "maras" wield across El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

The murder rate in Honduras remains one of the highest in the world, standing at 42 per 100,000 residents in 2017.

Some international aid organisations such as the Norwegian Refugee Council operate in the country with the same precautions as in war zones, and say inhabitants face the same dangers.

Ivan was removed from his job of 27 years in a police purge two years ago, and he says he fears death in Honduras.

15 Ivan's sons were recruited by a gang, and threatened with death if they refused to join Credit: Reuters

15 Fransisca Sislavas sits next to her daughter Brittany and her son Rony near the vehicle after an unidentified gunman killed her husband in a taxi in San Pedro Sula Credit: Reuters

The purge removed more than 4,000 officers, or close to a third of what is currently a 14,000-strong force, according to government spokesperson Commissioner Jair Meza.

Ivan says the purge removed good police as well as bad, while leaving the former officers exposed to revenge attacks from gangs they once pursued.

He said: "They know us and so they hunt us down."

Meza said police who were removed were subject to polygraph tests and background checks before being selected. Age and performance were other considerations.

On the cocaine transit corridor to the nearby port of Puerto Cortes, San Pedro Sula was for years one of the world's most dangerous cities.

Its morgue was so full of corpses that locals said they could smell them.

15 Prisoners play cards in Puerto Cortes jail, Honduras Credit: Reuters

15 The dead body of an Barrio-18 gang member

15 Police were called to the body of another Barrio-18 member

On a night in late July, a family sat on the side of a highway in San Pedro Sula, a few feet from a crime scene.

Fransisca Sislavas waited stone-faced between her son, Rony, two, and her daughter, Brittany, four. The girl's ankle was splattered with her father's blood.

Minutes earlier, Fransisca had been sitting beside her partner and their children in a taxi. She struggled to explain his death.

She said: "I don't know. Why? How? I just don't know."

15 Card games inside some of the most notorious prisons Credit: Reuters

15 A young member of Barrio-18, possibly female, points a gun at the camera Credit: Reuters

For some Hondurans who fail in their pursuit of the American Dream, deportation can mean an entrance into gang life.

Henry Fernando, an active member of MS-13 - also known as Mara Salvatrucha - said he walked more than 3,000 miles and almost died in the desert crossing from Mexico to find his mother, who had left him for Virginia.

Quickly deported, MS-13 was the only home he found, he said, recalling the girlfriends, or "jainas", that leaders offered as payment for the drugs he sold.

15 Police investigate as they stand near the bodies of two men who were killed by gangs

15 The remains of a man are seen a bush at the outskirts of in San Pedro Sula Credit: Reuters

15 Blood is seen on a wall next to Barrio-18 graffiti in a so-called Crazy House Credit: Reuters

15 A Barrio-18 gang member holds a gun in a house in San Pedro Sula Credit: Reuters

Nine years later, now 28, he has a young son, and dreams of leaving the gang.

His home, visited by Reuters, was a rented room barely wider than his mattress, up a rickety ladder in the middle of a pigsty. He had moved up the MS-13 ranks, but remains mired in poverty.

Ramon Bladimir Funes, 35, a member of Barrio-18 has served nearly three years in Puerto Cortes jail for robbery in jail near the northern Honduran port.

Among the jail's older inmates, Funes had joined Barrio-18 at 9 years old, after his mother abandoned him for the United States, he said. He only met his father at 17.

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Signs of his gang years were tattooed on his arms and across his chest. Down the bridge of his nose were three tears, gang code for lost loved ones.

Three of Funes' sons were killed by Barrio 18's arch-rival MS-13.

"You aspire to higher ideas and a higher mindset, but you're stuck in the problems of the street," said Funes, who regrets joining Barrio 18. "And weapons, all types, are so easy to find."

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