'Satan Himself Lives In San Pedro': Scary Pictures Of The Most Violent City On Earth

Rodrigo Abd / APInmates peer from inside their cell at the San Pedro Sula Central Corrections Facility in San Pedro Sula, Honduras."Satan himself lives here in San Pedro," a mortician from the second largest city in Honduras told The Guardian. "People here kill people like they're nothing more than chickens."

With a murder rate of 169 per 100,000 people in 2011, San Pedro Sula was named the world's most violent city in a study by Mexico's Citizens' Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice.

Over the last few years, homicides in Honduras have risen, even while violence falls in neighboring countries like El Salvador and Guatemala.

Arms and drug trafficking have flooded the country, contributing to high gang violence. Lax gun laws (civilians can own up to five personal firearms), corruption, and poverty make life in San Pedro Sula even worse.

What's more, inmates have controlled Honduras' 24 prisons since the state gave up on rehabilitating convicts, according to a recent report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.