6 killed by lynch mob in Guatemala

Vigilante townspeople rounded up and killed six suspected thieves in a small town in Guatemala, authorities in the violence-plagued Central American nation said Saturday. The five men and a woman were killed Friday in San Pedro Carcha, in Alta Verapaz department near the border with Mexico. A fire brigade spokesman, who did not wish to be named out of fear of reprisals, said the six were thought to have been involved in the robbery of a shop and killing of its owner. In many isolated areas of Guatemala, where the reach of government authorities is limited, local people frequently take the law into their own hands. In this case, without hearing or trial, townspeople grabbed the six and took them to a cornfield, where they were blindfolded and shot dead. Their bodies were taken to a local morgue, officials said. A human rights report released last week by Guatemala's Rights Prosecutor said that just in the first half of 2011, 25 people have been executed by "lynch mobs" in small towns, and another 66 injured.