A tiny island of “huge military value” has been the subject of a bitter dispute between two countries for several decades and has borders shared by three.
Conejo Island – Rabbit Island – sits between two bays in the Gulf of Fonseca – the Bahia de La Union shared by El Salvador and Honduras and the Bahia de Chismuyo off the coast of Honduras.
The tiny strip of roughly 1,000 square-metre land has three maritime borders, including the two aforementioned South American nations and Nicaragua, another one of Honduras’ neighbours to the east.
The island is barely 600 miles off Honduras’ coast and has been claimed by the country for decades.
But El Salvador has disagreed, with a now more than half-a-century argument persisting in the modern era.
Isla Conejo was first discovered in 1522 by explorer Gil González de Ávila, who named the land after his patron, Archbishop Juan Fonseca.
The dispute over the island has existed since 1969, when, during the Honduras-El Salvador Soccer War, the former country sent troops to occupy the land.
The longstanding official dispute ended in 1992 when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador would have to share the Gulf of Fonseca.
Rights to the islands were shared between the three nations, but Conejo was left unmentioned in the ruling.
As such, Honduras and El Salvador continue to dispute the land, as it is seen as strategically important.
In 2006, then-president of El Salvador Antonio Saca said it was “totally clear” that “Conejo Island is Salvadoran”.
And Honduran President Manuel Zelaya said there was “no place for doubt” regarding the country’s “use, possession, and sovereignty” over Conejo.
A paper published by the University of New Mexico’s Latin America Digital Beat (LADB) in 2006 titled “Tiny Island, Big Consequences For Honduras And El Salvador” said Conejo’s “strategic value belies its size”.
The countries continue to recognise this, and the dispute continues, with El Salvador’s Council of Ministers signing an executive decree in 2021 reclaiming sovereignty over the island.
A similar decree issued by Juan Orlando Hernández, President of Honduras, claimed it was Honduran, but the dispute ultimately passed without significant conflict.
