Mob Violence on Rise in Guatemala
Lynching is increasingly becoming common in Guatemala, where an angry crowd of one thousand people Wednesday killed two men accused of kidnapping and killing a driver.

Drivers have protested that gangs extort money from them and they are attacked if they refuse. When the body of Ignacio Chen, who had disappeared in an attack on his truck, was found yesterday, angry neighbors executed his presumed killers, Carlos Yax and Manuel Caal.

Recently a woman was killed and two severely injured in Camotan, Chiquimula, all three linked to the murder of an eight-year-old girl.

This weekend police rescued another two from a similar fate for an alleged attempted kidnapping of a girl in Jocotan.

Taking justice into their own hands has become common practice in Guatemala due to the facility with which criminals are released and, in fact, National Civil Police Chief Henry Lopez confirmed that procedures are in place to permit witnesses of child-kidnappings to leave the country if they receive death threats.