GUATEMALA: Soldiers evacuate 44 peasants from their small village near the Mexican border after gunmen allegedly belonging to the notorious Zetas cartel sweep through the local community
Record ID:
702352
GUATEMALA: Soldiers evacuate 44 peasants from their small village near the Mexican border after gunmen allegedly belonging to the notorious Zetas cartel sweep through the local community
- Title: GUATEMALA: Soldiers evacuate 44 peasants from their small village near the Mexican border after gunmen allegedly belonging to the notorious Zetas cartel sweep through the local community
- Date: 30th September 2012
- Summary: EXTERIOR OF BUILDING AT MILITARY BASE (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) COLONEL AT MILITARY BASE, RONALD VELAZQUEZ, SAYING: "From midnight on the 25th they started to bring them to police and military units saying that they were scared and afraid and that they would be subject to some kind of aggression. At 5:30 am reinforcements from the Public Ministry arrived, in total about a dozen people, for support and 44 people were evacuated."
- Embargoed: 15th October 2012 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Guatemala
- Country: Guatemala
- Reuters ID: LVA9KKWF4ZNSUT0MEWBUVEQ6HMEY
- Story Text: A joint military and police operation rescued 44 peasants in Guatemala who were being held hostage in their homes allegedly by the brutal Zetas drug gang, local media in the Central American country reported.
According to Guatemalan authorities, dozens of peasants, including women and children, were rescued earlier this week from Santo Domingo Sinlaj, a rural town close to the Mexican border, and moved to the nearby Huehuetenango military base.
Locals called on authorities to help protect them after armed men moved into the village.
"From midnight on the 25th they started to bring them to police and military units saying that they were scared and afraid and that they would be subject to some kind of aggression. At 5:30 am reinforcements from the Public Ministry arrived, in total about a dozen people, for support and 44 people were evacuated," said Colonel Ronald Velazquez.
Residents say the brutal Mexico-based Zetas cartel was behind attacks on the small town.
"The organization is the Zetas and they kidnap people. Who gave the order for them to harass people who are working for their food and they come to harass them? Why? I don't want these men, I don't want them to threaten us. They harass us and this damages us all," said Sebastian Sebastian who had been kidnapped by the Zetas.
Mexico's escalating drug war has seen drug violence spill over into Guatemala, with the tiny Central American country's impoverished northern region easy prey for the region's well-armed and powerful cartels.
Serafina Sebastian told Reuters her family had taken cover in their home after suspected traffickers took over the town.
"Drug traffickers brought in all their weapons in their homes. They shot at us and surrounded us in the house. They wanted to get to the top of the house and we went inside the house and locked ourselves in the house. They didn't find us when they came in or else they would have killed us with the traffickers guns. I don't know what their weapons are called but they were large as well," she said.
Struggling to tame spiraling cartel violence and drug trafficking activity, Guatemala declared a "state of siege" and deployed soldiers to its remote northern areas last year with expanded powers to arrest and interrogate suspects while limiting freedom of movement and assembly.
The move followed the massacre of 27 peasants in the small Guatemalan town of Caserio La Bomba in one of the worst mass killings in the country since the end of the civil war.
With two coasts and a long, porous border with Mexico, Guatemala is strategic territory for cartels that use small planes, trucks and even makeshift submarines to move Colombian cocaine to consumers in the United States. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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