Police in Honduras said six men were shot dead as they left an airport in the northern part of the country, which has one of the world's highest homicide rates.

The incident took place on Friday, at the exit for the carpark at the airport in San Pedro Sula, which is located 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of the capital Tegucigalpa.

On Thursday, the Violence Observatory at the National Autonomous University of Honduras released a study indicating that the small Central American country of eight million was on course to break world records with its murder rate.

Honduras will reach 86 murders per 100,000 inhabitants by the end of this year, according to the observatory's coordinator Migdonia Ayestas.

Honduras leads 207 countries with its murder rate this year, according to a UN study that estimated it at 82.1 deaths per 100,000 people. It is followed in the region by El Salvador (66) and Guatemala (41.4).

Authorities have blamed some of the violence on international drug cartels, which have used Central American countries such as Honduras as transit routes to export cocaine to the United States.