They cannot go home again.

For many Honduran deportees, home means a return to the brutality that sent them fleeing north in the first place.

In the neighborhoods where they grew up, corpses are dumped unceremoniously at construction sites, and carted off in body bags like loads of potatoes. Heavily armed police patrol from the back of pickup trucks, stopping to frisk pedestrians for weapons, drugs or other signs they belong to gangs.

At home, a grieving woman with a household broom tries to wash rivers of blood from the alleyway where her kin was slain.

Police investigators use a body bag to keep dry in the rain, as a colleague recovers a body in an area where people dig for sand used in construction, in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, July 11, 2018. Investigators said the victim had been there various d… — Police investigators use a body bag to keep dry in the rain, as a colleague recovers a body in an area where people dig for sand used in construction, in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, July 11, 2018. Investigators said the victim had been there various days, was a male between 18 and 23 years old, and showed execution-style injuries. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

For these deportees, home is a neighborhood ruled by murderous gangs who extort money and demand that young men join their ranks _ killing those who refuse to obey.

They cannot go back home, so many seek refuge at a shelter for troubled youth in the capital, Tegucigalpa, where their stories echo each other.

Alexis, 18, arrived at the shelter two years ago after being deported from Mexico. He says gangsters had threatened him repeatedly because he wouldn’t join them, and finally his mother told him he had to run.

Salm, 14, left home after gang members threatened to kill him for refusing to join. He was in a shelter in Nicaragua for a while, but then that country sent him back.

Jus, 15, fled after his father was murdered. He was deported from Guatemala.

“I can’t go back to where I was born,” Jus says. “In any case, I don’t have any family there any longer.”

Jus, who did not want to give his last name for security reasons, works on composing songs at the shelter where he lives that takes in deported migrant youths who cannot return home due to high violence in their communities in Tegucigalpa, Honduras,… — Jus, who did not want to give his last name for security reasons, works on composing songs at the shelter where he lives that takes in deported migrant youths who cannot return home due to high violence in their communities in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, July 27, 2018. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

The Associated Press is not publishing the location of the refuge or the full names of its residents for safety reasons.

Many deported families no longer have a home. They sold everything to pay for a trip north and now find themselves without shelter _ and the additional burden of a debt they cannot pay.

A woman named Larissa, her husband and their two children left home after the Mara Salvatrucha gang tried to recruit her 14-year-old son; when her boy refused to join, they beat him, kicking him in the face and breaking his nose.

Years earlier, her husband was shot 14 times by gang members for failing to make an extortion payment, but survived. Three of her cousins were not so lucky. They were recruited by gangs, and all died young.

“They say that those who take that path get killed,” Larissa said, speaking on condition of anonymity for safety. “That’s what happened to them.”

Larissa and her husband eat a lunch of fish on his break from a construction job in the department of Yojoa, Honduras, July 1, 2018 photo. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

The family was deported from Mexico and now lives with relatives in the countryside, where Larissa’s husband works in construction to save for another trip north. She doesn’t dare move back to her hometown, El Progreso, though she did risk a visit to get a copy of the police report she had made about the gang. She hopes it will help the family gain asylum in the United States. They will try “when things are calm and they’re not taking kids away,” she says.

In Tegucigalpa, the kids remain at home as long as they can. On a recent day, smiling boys with toy submachine guns play cops and gangsters, pausing when asked which side they are on: police, they say.

Today it is a game. One day, those boys may have to make a real-life decision: whether to join a gang, or to flee their homes.

In this July 9, 2018 photo, a woman breaks down crying on the perimeter of a crime scene where her only son Javier Antonio Santos, 18, was killed during a shootout with military police, where an officer also died, in the Chamelecon neighborhood of San Pedro Sula, Honduras. The two youths who died in the shootout are alleged by police to be Mara gang members, while the mother cried that he was not. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

In this July 30, 2018 photo, 18-year-old Alexis cuts another youth’s hair inside the shelter where they live which takes in deported migrant youths who cannot return home due to high violence in their communities, where they risk getting forced into gangs, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Alexis said that after being threatened with death by a gang member, he tried to reach the U.S. with two of his cousins, but were deported from Mexico. AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

In this Aug. 2, 2018 photo, the body of Ronald Blanco is covered in a sheet after being recovered by the national police in an alleyway of the Japon neighborhood where the Barrio 18 gang operates in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The DJ was found dead with 15 bullet wounds in an alleyway. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

In this July 24, 2018 photo, a military police officer frisks men for weapons and drugs inside a bar located at the market in a high-crime area of Comayaguela, Honduras. The bar is known for prostitution and the men were let go after nothing was found on them. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

In this July 1, 2018 photo, a man who prefers not to give his name for fear or gang member retaliation, wraps a shirt around his forehead to protect his head and neck as he works as a construction laborer in the department of Yojoa, Honduras, where he worked to build a home to save money for his family to migrate again to the U.S. On April 22, 2001, the man was shot by gang members 14 times when he failed to come up with extortion money but survived after being left for dead. His son and 8-year-old daughter left on a northern-bound bus, but in Mexico he and his wife came across a security roadblock, and lacking proper documents, were sent back to Honduras.(AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

In this July 24, 2018 photo, military police patrol past the Comayaguela market in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The market is the capital’s biggest, serving as the city’s outlet as well as one of the highest crime rate areas, so police can be seen patrolling 24-7. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

In this Aug. 1, 2018 photo, a mat with cartoon images explaining different human rights covers the floor at a shelter that takes in deported migrant youths who cannot return home due to high violence in their communities, where they risk getting forced into gangs, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Youths roll the oversized dice to obtain a number, which points to one of the diagrams. They then read out loud what the square says, which starts a discussion on the diagram’s particular human right’s issue. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

In this July 4, 2018 photo, child migrants traveling with their parents line up to get on a bus destined for Guatemala City as they make their way to the U.S., in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. In 2018, the Honduran Migration Consular Observatory (CONMIGHO) counted 5,488 minors deported back to Honduras from the U.S., Mexico, Europe and Central America. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

In this July 4, 2018 photo, military police frisk and search passengers traveling on public bus, at the entrance to the Rivera Hernandez neighborhood, a high crime area of San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Military police regularly stop residents in private or public transportation, usually men, to search them for weapons or signs that they belong to a gang. The men frisked in this instance were let go. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

In this July 26, 2018 photo, people watch the gay beauty contest coined "Our Beauty" at a disco club in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. LGBTI organizations in Honduras have denounced at least 40 murders of their community since the start of 2017, with most being victims of gunfire. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

In this Aug. 2, 2018 photo, family members of slain Ronald Blanco clean his blood from the alleyway of the Japon neighborhood where the Barrio 18 gang operates Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Family members sprinkled holy water and prayed at the site before working to wash away the blood stains, as passing neighbors gave them their condolences. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

In this July 4, 2018 photo, a military police officer looks at a notebook found hidden inside a public bus, as he searches several men who were the bus in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. The notebook, which no one claimed to be the owner of, appears to list names and extortion payments, due and paid, by shop owners, drivers, etc. No one was detained during the search of bus passengers, but the notebook was confiscated by police. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

In this July 14, 2018 photo, national police investigators and forensics stand over the body of 18-year-old Cristian Orellana after he was killed alongside two of his friends after playeing soccer in the Chamelecon neighborhood of San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Police said the killings are related to a territorial dispute between the gangs Barrio 18 and MS 13, but their families insisted they are workers and not gang members. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

In this July 22, 2018 photo, brothers and cousins pretend to shoot little girls watching them from a window, as they play cops and gangsters with toy guns that were a gift from an uncle, in Taulabe, Honduras. When asked if they were cops or gangsters, they paused to think about it and answered “cops.” (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

Photos and text from AP News story, Honduras Deported to Danger, by Esteban Felix.

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