Six Months of Bloodshed in Guatemala
July 28th, 2003
A total of 373 children and
youth under the age of 23 were murdered in Guatemala City during the first
six months of 2003. One hundred and five (28%) of the victims were children
under the age of 18, some as young as 12. Guatemala City has a population of
just over two million people.
Thirty of the victims (8%)
were girls according to the statistics collected by the Legal Aid Program of
Casa Alianza Guatemala, a private agency that fights to defend the rights of
children and youth in Latin America. Eighteen percent of the 60 murders in
March were girls - the youngest females were 13 and 14 year olds.
Five men in a vehicle
kidnapped two young girls, Deborah Elizabeth and Olga Thomas, 16 and 11
years old respectively on June 25th in Zone 4 of Guatemala City. Pieces of
their dismembered bodies were found on July 2nd in San Pedro Ayampuc, some
14 miles from the capital. There are no suspects in the murders.
The bloodiest month for child
and youth murders was June with 71 killings. "The tendency has been for the
numbers of murders to increase each month", commented Bruce Harris, the
Regional Director for the agency's Latin American Programs. "In January
there were 53 murders, February 62, March 60, April 59 and May 68. The
authorities do nothing to stop the killings and in many cases they are in
factaccused of being directly involved".
Guns carried out more than 92%
of the murders of the children and youth. According to the University of
Central America, there are more than three million arms in the hands of the
civilian population in Central America. Many of the guns are small arms and
shotguns, but there are also AK-47's, M-16s, etc.
The largest number of killings
was of 22 year olds (19%) followed by 20 year olds (16.6%) and 18 and 19
year olds (13% each).
According to Casa Alianza's
more than 12 years of experience with the legal defense of children, less
than 5% of these murders will result in a conviction and less if there are
police and the military involved.
Casa Alianza has been waiting
for the Guatemalan Human Rights Procurator to collect data on the murder of
children and youth in the Departments (States) throughout Guatemala in order
to be able to quantify the number of young victims at the national level.
"There are 2.6 murders of
children and youth every single day in Guatemala City alone and the numbers
are getting worse. In other countries this would political heads to roll,
but in Guatemala no-one seems to give a damn", concluded Harris. Guatemala
was the sixth country in the world to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights
of the Child.
In Honduras there are 50
murders per 100,000 persons; 90 in El Salvador and 101 per 100,000 habitants
in Guatemala. The World Health Organization considers more than 10 murders
per 100,000 habitants makes a country "dangerous".
The bloodiest day for children
so far this year was May 4th, when 11 children were killed throughout
Guatemala City, followed by January 1st (8 victims) and seven victims on
each of March 15th, June 6th and June 17th.
According to Casa Alianza
statistics, 358 children and youth were murdered in Guatemala City in 2001
and 400 in 2002. This year has been the bloodiest to date for Guatemala
City's children.
----------------
For more information, please
contact Bruce Harris at +506-253-5439 <info@casa-alianza.org> or
<guatemala@casa-alianza.org>
-------------------------------------------------------------
If you wish to unsubscribe
from this list, send a message with the text "unsubscribe rapid-response" to
the following address: "rapid-response-request@casa-alianza.org"
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Never doubt that a small
group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, indeed it's
the only thing that ever has". Margaret Mead, Anthropologist
