The recent murder of a prominent pastor in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, has focused attention on that country’s alarming murder rate and the regular threats that Christian workers there receive.

Pastor Carlos Roberto Marroquín

According to a story by Compass Direct News, Pastor Carlos Roberto Marroquín, 41, was shot to death by two assailants as he walked his two Schnauzer dogs in the Colonia Aurora neighborhood near his house on Feb. 21.

Compass reported that authorities said the gunmen asked him for his cell phone, shooting him when he resisted. Whether the high-profile pastor was targeted as a Christian leader for the murder-theft is speculative. Such killings are common in Honduras for people of all religious beliefs, and although he had received death threats, Compass said those too are not unusual for Christian leaders in the country.

Compass said Marroquín was the second pastor to be murdered in Honduras this year, after the Jan. 30 killing of Raymundo Fuentes, 43, pastor of the New Jerusalem Temple.

Fuentes was slain as he was leaving the evening service at his church with his wife. Two days prior the daughter of an evangelical pastor had been killed, though police did not link the two murders.

While police are ruling the murder of Marroquín as a robbery, others believe it was a direct attack on the work of the evangelical church.

“I cannot believe it was for stealing,” Compass reported Pastor Roy Santos said. He added, “The authorities have to act. He was a man who gave a message of hope.”