IV. ANALYSIS OF ADMISSIBILITY A. Request to sever petitions 25. In the instant matter, the Honduran State requested that the petitioner’s allegations pertaining to the extrajudicial execution of two members of the Community of San Juan and the attempted homicide against five other members be severed into a separate case. In this regard, Article 29.4 of the IACHR Rules of Procedure establishes that “If the petition sets forth distinct facts, or if it refers to more than one person or to alleged violations not interconnected in time and place, the Commission may divide it and process the files separately, so long as all the requirements of Article 28 of these Rules of Procedure are met.”6 26. Based on the information submitted in the proceedings, the IACHR notes that these allegations do not lack a link in time and place to the purpose of the petition, as described in general terms as the recognition and effective protection of the ancestral territory of a Garifuna community. In fact, as argued by the petitioner, the principal claim involves the recognition and quiet enjoyment of its territorial rights vis-à-vis third parties with interests in their territory, who have perpetrated several acts of violence, persecution and intimidation against members of the Community. According to the petitioner, these acts include the extrajudicial execution of two members of San Juan Community and the attempted homicide of another five members. The IACHR also notes that the information provided on this issue by the petitioner, as of the filing of the initial petition and throughout the proceedings before the IACHR, was brought to the attention of the State in a timely fashion. Therefore, the Commission finds that it is out-of-order to sever these allegations and it shall take them into consideration in the examination of admissibility requirements. B. Competence of the Commission ratione personæ, ratione loci, ratione temporis and ratione materiæ 27. The petitioner is entitled under Article 44 of the American Convention to lodge petitions before the Commission. The petition identifies as the alleged victims the Community of San Juan and the members thereof belonging to the Garifuna people,7 for whom the State undertook to respect and ensure the rights enshrined in the American Convention. As for the State, the Commission notes that Honduras has been a State Party to the American Convention since September 8, 1977, when it deposited the respective instrument of ratification. Therefore, the Commission is competent ratione personae to examine the petition. The Commission is also competent ratione loci to hear the petition, inasmuch as violations of rights protected in the American Convention are alleged therein to have taken place within the territory of Honduras, a State Party to these treaties. 28. The Commission is competent ratione temporis because the obligation to respect and ensure the rights protected in the American Convention was already in effect on the State when the facts alleged in the petition took place. Lastly, the Commission is competent ratione materiae being that the petition charges potential violations of human rights protected under the American Convention. C. Other Admissibility Requirements 1. Exhaustion of Domestic Remedies 6 Approved by the Commission at its 137th regular session, held from October 28 to November 13, 2009; and amended on September 2, 2011, and at its 147th regular session, held from March 8 to 22, 2013, entering into force on August 1, 2013. 7 The alleged victims include members of the Garifuna Community of San Juan, the approximate population of which is 1400 persons. The community is located in a specific geographic area, the members of which can be individually identified. In this regard, see: IA Court of HR, Case of the Mayagna (Sumo) Awas Tingni Community. Judgment August 31, 2001. Series C Nº 79, par. 149; IACHR, Report No. 62/04, Kichwa de Sarayaku Indigenous People and its Members (Ecuador), paragraph 47; IACHR, Report No. 58/09, Kuna de Mandungandi and Emberá de Bayano Indigenous Peoples and their Members (Panama), paragraph 26; IACHR, Report No. 79/09, Ngobe Indigenous Communities and their Members in the Chingola River Valley (Panama), paragraph 26.