RINCON DE CHAUTLA — Unable to send their children to school and too afraid to step out of their enclave of 16 mountain villages in violence-plagued Guerrero state in southwestern Mexico, residents say they have been left with little choice but to train their children in the way of the gun.
When David Sanchez Luna’s mother-in-law, 56, was tortured and killed after venturing out of her small community encircled by cartel members, he let his seven- and ten-year-old daughters receive military-style weapons training.
“They do this to prepare themselves to defend the family, their siblings and defend the village,” said Sanchez Luna, a corn farmer in a rugged region which five years ago formed a self-defence “community police” militia to protect itself.
The move by the villagers to offer arms training to school-age children shocked the nation and made global headlines last month after local media broadcast images of children as young as six toting guns and showing off military maneuvers.
“They are killing children. We have to arm children,” Isabel Márquez, 25, a mother of two, told the Wall Street Journal.
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