Like most of the indigenous men on this part of the Mosquito Coast, he made his living diving for lobsters destined for American and European restaurants. And like many of those buried around him, Carlos was killed suddenly – and horribly – by the bends.

It is impossible to say what proportion of men from La Moskitia are killed or left paralysed diving for lobster for the international market: there has never been a census of this region, so no one knows how many live here. Accessible only by sea or air, it is a land of wiry mangroves, indigo lagoons and thick jungle, home to an ethnic group called the Miskitos. At least 4,200 Miskito men are thought to be living with permanent disabilities due to diving accidents – half the estimated number of lobster divers. The shores of the Mosquito Coast are so inundated with paralysed men that some places look more like colonies for war veterans than fishing villages.

Since 2003, the Association of Disabled Miskito Divers has registered 352 deaths from the bends, but this is a conservative figure: many will have been killed at sea never to be accounted for, and hundreds more will have died at home, slowly, from diving injuries. The Cocobila cemetery is one of many graveyards dotted along the coastline that have become monuments to the true price of luxury food…continue Honduras Lobster Divers article here.