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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Gangs clash in Guatemalan jails |
| 2005-08-16 |
| Isn't the Mara Salvatrucha/MS13 gang increasingly present in the USA, notably for smuggling illegals, and officially said to be an AQ associate?At least 30 prisoners have reportedly died and more than 50 have been injured during battles between rival gangs in several prisons in Guatemala. Hundreds of armed police and soldiers were deployed and fired tear gas to regain control of the prisons. At least 18 people were thought to have died during a fight at a prison known as "The Hole" in a town south of the capital, Guatemala City. The dead were killed by gunshot wounds and hand grenade blasts. Officials said a fearsome array of weaponry - including knives, automatic rifles and hand grenades - had been smuggled into the prisons. The trouble is thought to have erupted after members of one of Central America's most notorious gangs, the Mara Salvatrucha, clashed with members of their main rival, Mara 18. The gangs appear to have coordinated the fighting using mobile telephones, said Guatemala's Interior Minister Carlos Vielmann. The bloodiest fighting appears to have taken place in the "The Hole" prison in Escuintla town. Witnesses saw corpses covered in tattoos of their gang's symbols. Some bodies were said to have been mutilated. Eight men were also killed in the Pavon correctional facility near Guatemala City, said the head of the country's prison service. Officials warn that the number of injured could reach as many as 80. Hospitals in the region say they are struggling to cope. The BBC's Americas editor, Paul Keller, says the rioting is an ominous warning to the authorities in Honduras and El Salvador as well as Guatemala. All are struggling to contain the activities of street gangs known as "maras", which are blamed for a wave of killings and robberies across the region. |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |
| #1 We've had a few horrifying incidents where MS-13 members have gone after people with machetes here in the DC area. |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2005-08-16 18:26 |