Guatemala recruits ex-soldiers to fight gang crime

“Guatemala has rehired a battalion of former soldiers to help police combat rising gang violence, raising concern in a country that has struggled to rely less on its once all-powerful army.

More than 2,000 ex-soldiers began patrolling in olive uniforms this week alongside the civilian police force set up to take over law enforcement duties from the military after the country“s 1960-96 civil war against leftist rebels.

They will mostly patrol crime-stricken neighborhoods in the capital, Guatemala City, where two rival street gangs active across Central America, Mexico and the United States are blamed for a wave of terror including rapes and beheadings.”

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