A volunteer police force in rural Mexico has recruited children as young as 12 after a wave of kidnappings hit the area. The case represents yet another sign of how some areas of the country struggle to deal with organized crime.
Armed with rifles and batons, and with their faces covered, boys and girls paraded through the local sports field this week before joining a patrol in Ayahualtempa, a mountain village in the southwestern state of Guerrero.
“We can’t study because of the lack of law,” a recruited teenager told the Milenio television channel. The boy explained that he learned to shoot a gun after a few 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 around 30 people, according to human rights groups.
In Ayahualtempa, four members of a local family have been missing since Friday (19), when they were kidnapped, the Guerrero state public prosecutor's office reported.
The minors are reinforcing the volunteer police force and will do their best to protect the village of about 700 people while the adults search for the missing people, said Antonio Toribio, a local official.
“We will not allow them to kidnap us anymore or for people to continue disappearing,” Toribio said.
This is not the first time that minors have been armed in Guerrero, where authorities have struggled to combat powerful drug trafficking gangs.
Source: CNN Brasil
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