MEXICO CITY — In a lawless stretch of western Mexico, children as young as 6 years old are taking up arms against organized crime.
On Wednesday, 19 children were inducted into a vigilante group that for years has been battling drug gangs in restive Guerrero state. Local journalists published photographs and videos of the induction ceremony — in which uniformed, rifle-wielding children performed military-style exercises — that drew outrage across Mexico, with human rights officials condemning it as child abuse.
But the leader of the vigilante group said in a phone interview Thursday that a dramatic spike in violence in the region and an absence of government intervention have left the community no choice but to arm even its children.
“They must be prepared,” said Bernardino Sanchez Luna, the founder of the vigilante group known as the CRAC-PF. “If they are afraid, the criminals will kill them like little chickens.”
Two of the children who were trained were 6 years old, he said. The oldest members of the group were 15.
Over the last decade, dozens of self-defense groups have emerged in Guerrero. They say they are defending themselves from local criminal gangs that control drug smuggling routes and extort businesses in the region. Critics say the vigilantes are often themselves involved in criminal activity.
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See Also:
(1) Gangs recruit children because they can’t find sicarios: AMLO
(2) Security concerns trigger violent protest in Amozoc, Puebla
