Guatemala City is hub of high-impact crime wave
The department of Guatemala, which includes Guatemala City, accounts for 67% of all the cases of high-impact crime in the country's seven most crime-ridden departments. The UN office in Guatemala highlights the fact that contract killings account for much of the increase in violent deaths, which totalled 1,949 countrywide in the first four months of the year.
The Policía Nacional Civil (PNC) reports 4,247 cases of high-impact crime (a category which includes homicide, robbery, hold-ups, rape, kidnapping, disappearances & domestic violence) in the department of Guatemala, compared with 2,103 in the six other departments with the highest crime rates.
The report by the UN office in Guatemala, released in the first week of June, notes that firearms are the main instrument of violent death, followed by knives. It also says, 'The increase in violent crime has as its modus operandi the hiring of sicarios to carry out contract killings.' The 'signature' of these killings is the use of weapons like AK-47 assault rifles and the delivery of a coup de grace to the victims, whose valuables are not stolen.
Many of these contract killings are the result of turf wars between drug traffickers, and acts of revenge by gangs. The report notes that drug trafficking has spread throughout Guatemala, with the highest concentrations of activity in the departments of Guatemala, Petén, Escuintla, Zacapa, Izabal and San Marcos — a list which includes four of the seven jurisdictions with the highest crime rates.
It is worth noting that the departments least affected by crime are Alta Verapaz, Baja Verapaz, Chimaltenango, El Progreso, Retalhuleu and Totonicapán.
Interior minister Carlos Vielmann says that while crime rates remain excessively high, progress is being made. Since the beginning of the year, he says, the PNC has arrested 14,528 suspected criminals and recovered 387 stolen vehicles. Also, 'after the restructuring of the antinarcotics police', in May the authorities seized 72 kilos of drugs and captured 'several sicarios hired by organised crime'.
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Guatemala's most dangerous departments |
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| Department | Cases | Department | Cases |
| Guatemala | 4,247 | Jutiapa | 292 |
| Escuintla | 563 | Izabal | 237 |
| Petén | 412 | Chiquimula | 215 |
| Quetzaltenango | 384 | ||
| *Homicide, robbery, holdups, rape, kidnapping, disappearances & domestic violence. | |||
| Source: UN, based on PNC | |||