Toddler stays days beside slain mother

GUATEMALA CITY: A two-year-old Guatemalan girl stayed for three days in a room beside the bloodied bodies of her mother and three other people, hacked to death in a machete attack, emergency services said yesterday. The other victims were two boys, ages five and seven, and a pregnant 17-year-old woman. The toddler was rescued on Sunday night after neighbours alerted by her crying raised the alarm. “She had insect bites and was suffering from malnutrition and dehydration,” fire department spokesmen Ricardo Lemus said. The toddler, who authorities have not named, was uninjured in the attack. It was not clear why she was spared.

The body of the girl’s mother, Magali Larga Estrada, 25, was severely slashed. She was a Nicaraguan who lived in Guatemala where she sold clothes. Police are investigating whether the killings, in a crime-ridden district on the edge of the capital, were linked to gang-related extortion of the women. Dozens are murdered every week in Guatemala in a crime wave fed by widespread poverty, drug trafficking and ineffective law enforcement. Fighting between street gangs known as “maras” is blamed for much of the violence. Two gangs, known as “18” and “Mara Salvatrucha,” frequently attack each other and kill members who try to leave the gang. Only around five percent of murder cases are solved, according to government officials.