A volunteer police force in rural Mexico that says it has been plagued by local kidnappings has recruited schoolchildren as young as 12 to join its ranks, the latest sign of how parts of the country are struggling to tackle organized crime.
Armed with rifles and sticks, and with their faces covered, boys and girls marched around a local sports field this week before joining a patrol in Ayatualtempa, a mountain village in the southwestern state of Guerrero.
“We can’t study because we break the law,” said a recruited teenager to the television channel Milenio.
The boy explained how he had learned to shoot a gun after several lessons.
Violence has recently increased in Guerrero, one of Mexico’s poorest states.
In early January, a drone attack allegedly carried out by the La Familia Michoacana drug cartel killed about 30 people, rights groups said.
Children hold a rifle before a community police joining ceremony, days after an armed group kidnapped four people from the community, in Ayatualtempa, Guerrero state, Mexico, January 24, 2024. REUTERS A child poses for a photo holding a rifle before a joining ceremony community police on January 24, 2024. REUTERS The child joins the line of community police, in Ayatualtempa. Reuters
In Ayatualtempa, four members of a local family have been missing since last Friday when they were kidnapped, the Guerrero state prosecutor’s office said.
The minors are reinforcing the volunteer police force, and will do their best to guard the village of about 700 residents while adults search for missing people, said Antonio Toribio, a local official.
“We will not allow them to kidnap us again, or people will continue to disappear,” Toribio said.
This is not the first time minors have been armed in Guerrero, where authorities are struggling to combat powerful drug cartels.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
