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Children fleeing horrible circumstances

Many Americans wonder why so many kids from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras are fleeing to America. I go to Guatemala several times a year and while there recently, I asked some friends and watched for news articles about this. Here is what people are saying: In the very poor barrios, when a boy is about 12 years old, he is told by the neighborhood pandilleros – gang members – to join up with them and start participating in extortion of businesses and people in the barrio. When someone does not pay, they are usually killed by the pandilleros. When a young boy refuses to join a gang, knowing that when he does he will probably have to kill someone, he will probably be killed. The only other choice he has is to leave home and family. If the family can afford it, they hire a coyote to take their son to the United States.

There was a death summary I read in a Guatemalan newspaper, Nuestro Diario, on Nov. 24. It stated that 2,288 youths between 14 and 29 years of age were killed by gangs in the first nine months of 2014 in Guatemala. That is almost nine persons killed every day. I doubt that this count is completely accurate. There are probably more. One of the most dangerous jobs in Guatemala City is driving a bus because buses are a favorite target of extortionists. The bus owner must pay the pandilleros to go into their areas of control; if the owner does not pay the driver or driver’s helper gets shot.

Charles W. Albert

Durango



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