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CENTRAL AMERICA |
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One
Dead, Four Wounded in Attacks on Guatemalan
Prison Guards
GUATEMALA CITY – At least one person was
killed and four others wounded when gunmen
opened fire on Penitentiary System guards in
two separate incidents, officials said.
The first attack occurred Saturday near the
Pavon prison in the city of Fraijanes,
located 16.5 kilometers (about 10 miles)
southeast of the capital, leaving guard
Marco Antonio Lopez dead and a female guard
wounded, Penitentiary System spokesman Rudy
Esquivel said.
The two guards were heading home on a bus
when gunmen opened fire on them from a
vehicle, Esquivel said.
The second incident happened in the southern
section of Guatemala City, where four guards
heading home in a taxi were attacked.
Gunmen in another vehicle opened fire on the
taxi, wounding three of the guards, Esquivel
said.
Investigators have not identified the motive
for the attack and are trying to determine
if the two incidents are connected, the
prison service spokesman said.
On Sept. 7, a series of attacks on prison
guards and officials were launched after
inmates were transferred to a
maximum-security prison, leaving several
prison officials dead.
The Penitentiary System’s Guatemala City
headquarters was attacked two days earlier,
but no one was injured.
Government Minister Raul Velasquez blamed
the attacks on prison officials on organized
crime groups and youth gangs angry over the
operations launched against them by the
security forces.
Guatemala has been dealing with a crime wave
that has driven the murder rate up to around
17 a day.
The more than 5,400 homicides reported last
year in Guatemala – a nation of
approximately 13 million – was nearly equal
to the number of murders in neighboring
Mexico, which has more than 100 million
inhabitants and is the scene of open warfare
among rival drug cartels.
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