Two policemen kidnapped in Colombia

Two policemen were kidnapped on 25 or 26 January by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in a district in the Valle del Cauca department east of the city of Cali, media reported. The two were kidnapped while investigating reports of extortion and criminal activity in the locality of La Granja between the districts of Florida and Pradera; apparently they unexpectedly met with members of the Gabriel Galvis Mobile Column of the FARC's Sixth Front, El Espectador reported on 26 January, citing the Cali newspaper El País. The broadcaster Caracol reported the policemen to be alive; the FARC kidnapped an engineer in the same area that day, though he was released hours later. On 26 January President Juan Manuel Santos urged the international community to maintain support for ongoing peace talks with the FARC, speaking after meeting with the French Prime Minister in Santiago de Chile. They met on the sidelines of the summit of Latin American and the EU. He said the state would maintain "pressures" on the FARC before an agreement was signed.

Gang members surrender to troops in Colombia

Fifteen members of the Urabeños, one of Colombia's main criminal gangs, surrendered at an unspecified date to the navy in the district of Pilizá on Colombia's Pacific coast, El Espectador reported on 25 January. The group, led by a gangster dubbed El Tigre, apparently decided to surrender together, arriving at a meeting point in two boats that also carried seven women and 13 children or teenagers; these were perhaps relatives being taken under protection. The group was taken to Quibdó, capital of the Chocó department; arms and ammunition were also confiscated. The navy has stated that some 40 members of criminal gangs were detained on Colombia's Pacific coast in January 2013.

Thirteen killed around Mexico, six found in pieces

Thirteen people were reported killed or found dead on 24 January in criminal executions and shootouts with police around Mexico. Six of these were found dismembered in 15 plastic bags left in a car in the city of Toluca in the State of Mexico, a day after five bodies were found there in similar conditions, Proceso reported. A message was left apparently addressed to the authorities, and reportedly signed by one of the cartels the Familia Michoacana. Other victims included: two suspected drug dealers shot in a gun fight with police in the west-coast resort of Acapulco, and a police officer from the western district of Quitupan, shot by gangsters who pursued his car on a road near the frontier between the states of Jalisco and Michoacán. Separately the northern districts of Gómez Palacio and Lerdo were apparently without preventive or uniformed policemen after 81 resigned following their temporary detention and interrogation over suspected ties to criminals, CNN reported on 24 January, citing declarations by the Prosecutor's office of the state of Durango wherein are the districts. Other media had reported 91 resignations; this was in any case for the policemen's refusal to sit confidence or probity tests and undergo re-training ordered by the chief prosecutor of Durango, Sonia de la Garza. Nine policemen agreed to sit the tests, CNNMéxico reported.

Over 40 gangsters held in El Salvador over murders

State prosecutors in El Salvador announced on 23 January the arrests of 33 members of the M-18 gang for their suspected roles in beheading three youngsters in the eastern Izalco district last October, while eight other members of M-18 were arrested for their suspected roles in killing five rivals in the southern port of La Libertad in September. The head of the homicides office at the state prosecution service (Unidad Especial Antihomicidios Fiscalía General de la República) Óscar Torres said that the arrests had netted half or more of the members of the M-18's "Southern" line or faction, thought responsible for multiple crimes in Izalco in the Sonsonate department north-east of San Salvador. The 33 were suspected of taking part in the kidnapping, interrogation and murder with machetes of three youngsters aged between 17 and 21, on an estate on 11 October, the website elsalvador.com reported on 24 January. The daily El Mundo noted that the victims were suspected of being members of a rival gang, though state investigators later dismissed this. Eight other members of M-18's Southern line were also arrested for the murder on 18 September of five rivals in the Pacific port of La Libertad; officials have reportedly arrested more than 20 in relation with that incident. The victims, purported members of a rival faction in M-18, were aged between 13 and 18 and included a 16-year-old girl. The gang chief who ordered the killing first phoned to ask permission from his boss, currently serving a sentence in a prison west of the capital, elsalvador.com reported on 24 Januuary. He called from the home of a policeman who was also a member of the M-18 and was arrested in early October. Gang violence has reportedly declined in El Salvador since a ceasefire began in March 2012; instructions given out by imprisoned gang chiefs that violence stop among members may have been the reason for seeking approval before this killing.

European officials visit Peru for business

Peru's President Ollanta Humala Tasso received European delegations in Lima on 24 January including Spain's Prime Minister, presenting his increasingly prosperous country as a stable setting for more investments, El Peruano reported. The newspaper noted that Spain is the premier foreign investor in Peru with investments worth some USD five billion, but was also a market in 2011 that received over USD two billion's worth of Peruvian exports. Spain was currently in recession with just under six million Spaniards unemployed. At a press conference Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy urged Peruvian businessmen to "explore" Spain for business opportunities, Europa Press reported. El Peruano cited a study by the Andean Parliament indicating that currently 40 per cent of Peruvians living in Madrid wished to return home and 36 per cent were unemployed, without specifying how many they were. The study estimated 130,000 Peruvians lived in Spain. The European Commission's Vice-President for Industry and Enterprise Antonio Tajani was also in Lima that day, heading a delegation of representatives of some 40 EU firms visiting Peru and Chile on 22-26 January. The trip was to help EU firms expand their activities into emerging markets like Peru. After a meeting at the foreign ministry, Tajani said the EU considered Peru as "one of the most important" of countries for its lack of protectionism and the legal security of investments.

Venezuelan officials discern plotting by "Far Right"

The Venezuelan Interior Minister warned vaguely on 24 January that the country's "extreme Right" and foreign accomplices were plotting against senior state officials and that security agencies had been alerted; he was one of several officials who echoed allegations made the day before by the Vice-President Nicolás Maduro Moros that "infiltrators" were plotting possibly to kill him and the parliamentary Speaker Diosdado Cabello Rondón. The country's director of public prosecutions (Fiscal-general) warned that the state would take "necessary actions" against elements who would "destabilize" Venezuela in the absence of the President Hugo Chávez Frías. Chávez is said to be recovering from cancer surgery in Havana, although Liberal and conservative opponents have criticized his prolonged absence and the Maduro government's refusal to provide information on his state. The Interior Minister Néstor Reverol denounced the "plotters" for calling Maduro and Cabello "bus driver" and "little lieutenant," presumably in a bid to discredit them publicly or on the Internet. Cabello was in the army and Maduro a bus driver as a young man, though it was not clear if the nicknames were a part of the plots. "Yesterday it was necessary to report another destabilizing plan by the Venezuelan extreme Right in complicity with actors of the far Right abroad," El Universal cited Reverol as saying. He told the Governor of the state of Miranda, the former presidential aspirant Henrique Capriles, to stop talking about crime in the country seeing as "Miranda is the entity with most criminal incidents in all the country...homicides increased 65 per cent in your administration, robbery increased 35 per cent...kidnapping 480 per cent. And you are talking about security policies?" Capriles is the governor of Miranda since 2008. The higher-education minister Yadira Córdova suggested on state television that day that "destabilizing plans" may take the form of student protests. The head of the Public Ministry - the state prosecution service - Luisa Ortega Díaz in turn told radio that the Ministry had named a prosecutor to investigate the plot against the "physical integrity" of Maduro and Cabello by "sectors" she said "disrespect" officials and "seek to destabilize" Venezuela, the broadcaster Globovisión reported. Vice-President Maduro arrived in Havana on 24 January to visit the President and seek "decisions" on unspecified issues, Europa Press reported.

Army shoots gunmen, dozens killed around Mexico

Mexican troops shot dead five gunmen or gang suspects near Ciudad Victoria in the north-eastern state of Tamaulipas on 22 or 23 January, Proceso reported on 23 January; these were among at least 28 fatalities related to crime and related incidents reported for 21-23 January. The shootout occurred in the district of Lleras or Llera de Canales south of Victoria where the suspects were said to have set fire to several houses. Early on 23 January five bodies were found "in 10 plastic bags" in the district of Toluca, capital of the central Estado de México, Proceso reported. Messages were left beside them for the state governor Eruviel Ávila and the police. Police also found the bodies of two women shot dead in the northern district of Coahuila on 23 January, with an unharmed baby next to them, and those of two women and a man in a flat in Sinaloa in the state of Sinaloa, Proceso reported on 23 January. The review reported six killings including of two policemen on 22 January. The two were a female member of the roads police shot dead in the northern district of Chihuahua, and a police detective shot dead in the southern state of Oaxaca, Proceso reported. Three men were also reported shot dead in the northern district of Torreón late on 21 January. Marines were meanwhile sent to the district of La Laguna in the northern state of Durango, to help police curb crime in several districts of that state and the neighbouring state of Coahuila where Torreón is located. Also, 91 of 158 policemen detained earlier and questioned in the state of Durango over suspected links to crime were released 72 hours later for lack of evidence against them, while 64 or 65 were to be questioned further, the chief prosecutor of Durango declared on 22 January. Milenio reported that the 91 later resigned their positions and were negotiating their severance pays with their respective municipalities. Four unspecified "public servants" were formally ordered arrested, the prosecutor's office stated, though it was not clear if these were among the 158, while a court prolonged the provisional detention of 64 or 65, Proceso reported.

Police find tonnes of US-bound Colombian cocaine

Colombian police found at an unspecified date just under four tonnes of cocaine hidden in one or more containers in the Caribbean port of Cartagena and described as ultimately bound for the United States, the Defence Ministry and El Espectador reported on 22 January. The daily cited Colombia's police chief as saying that port inspectors became suspicious of one or more containers after noting discrepancies in their documentation, which prompted a close inspection. The containers were described as carrying a liquid pharmaceutical product inside "flexitanks" - large, resistant bags - which scrutiny and scanning revealed as containing also 3,826 packets of cocaine chlorhydrate, a refined substance. The Defence Ministry stated that investigations indicated these were being shipped by the Colombian gang Los Urabeños and destined for the Mexican cartel The Zetas; it observed the Urabeños likely lost some USD 95 million with the confiscation while the load would have become 10 million doses sold by street dealers in the United States.

Homicides continued unchecked in Honduras in 2012

Honduras remained one of the world's most murderous countries in 2012 as its homicide rate remained steady and very high over 2011-12, a university-related body found; observers expressed disappointment at the government's apparent failure to curb violent crime. Expressed as a rate per 100,000 inhabitants, homicides declined slightly from 86.5 in 2011 to 85.5 in 2012, according to a table compiled on 16 January by the Observatorio de la Violencia, a body affiliated to the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH). This may have been for a population increase, for homicides increased in this period from 7,014 to 7,172, El Heraldo reported, citing the Observatorio. There were slight differences with figures earlier reported for 2011. El Heraldo observed that the rate rose some 20 points in the presidency of Porfirio Lobo Sosa, a conservative who took office on 27 January 2010, from a rate then of 66.8/100,000. Presumably based on the Observatorio's accumulated figures, it counted 20,513 violent deaths over 1,095 days of the current presidency. Cited in terms of its daily frequency, the homicide rate in 2012 was 19.65 - meaning almost 20 people were killed around Honduras each day - compared to 19.47 for 2011. The daily also noted: the vast majority of such fatalities in 2012 - 6,565 - was among men while more than a quarter of all reported homicides since January 2010 occurred in the northern department of Cortés. The departmental capital San Pedro Sula is reported as one of the most violent cities in the world. The government's anti-crime measures have included placing security cameras around the capital, and moves to purge the police force of corrupt or criminal members.

Travel increased in Colombia in 2012

The flow of travel in and out of Colombia increased 17.7 per cent in 2012 compared to 2011, with over 1.4 million more people legally entering and leaving the country at all entry points, El Espectador reported on 19 January, citing figures given by the state migration office. Travellers were numbered at a little over 9.44 million in 2012, just over 1.42 million more than in 2011 and representing the largest number in decades, the Foreign Ministry's Migración Colombia declared. Its head Sergio Bueno Aguirre was reported as saying that just over six million of the travellers were Colombians, and their favoured destinations in numerical terms were the United States (979,230 went there in 2012) Venezuela (475,007), Panama, Ecuador, Spain (187,469) and Mexico (134,748). Migración stated that just under 1.7 million foreigners entered Colombia in 2012, 65.4 per cent of them being tourists. The main groups among these consisted of citizens of the United States (327,721), followed by those of Venezuela (251,475), Ecuador, Argentina, Spain (94,910) and Peru. The capital Bogotá hosted most foreign visitors (907,815) in 2012, followed by the Caribbean resort of Cartagena de Indias (206,846), Medellín (166,407) and Cali (112,313). If travel were an indicator of Colombia's increasing security and prosperity, rising property prices in the capital were another. Colombia's Central Bank observed a 5.1 per-cent year-on-year rise in property prices in Bogotá in the third quarter of 2012, La República reported on 21 January. Observers of the housing market told the daily that while the capital was not for now the setting of a speculative housing bubble, demand for housing currently exceeded supply.

Colombian guerrillas renew attacks, end ceasefire

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) ended their two-month ceasefire on 20 January by bombing power installations in the southern department of Putumayo and exchanging fire with police in several parts of the country. The ceasefire, declared but not strictly respected by the FARC, was intended to act as a fillip to ongoing peace talks with the Colombian government. The broadcaster Caracol reported attacks on a pipeline and a power pole that provoked an oil spill in the former case and a temporary blackout in the latter in three districts of western Putumayo. The police also said they exchanged fire with the FARC that day in the locality of El Placer in that department, Europa Press reported. A police helicopter was fired on by suspected FARC guerrillas just before the end of the ceasefire on 19 January, in the south-western district of Jambaló in the Cauca department. Caracol television showed police firing back with a machine gun from the helicopter, which was taking police reinforcements to the district of Jambaló. The Cauca's police chief Ricardo Alarcón told Caracol that police were re-trained and "exhaustively" prepared for renewed guerrilla actions at the end of the ceasefire; the broadcaster reported that more than 250 policemen were sent to reinforce security in districts in northern Cauca threatened by the FARC, namely Toribío, Jambaló, Caldono. In the northern department of Nariño, the FARC attacked a police station in the district of Tumaco, Caracol reported. Separately, state forces reportedly caught three suspects thought involved in the kidnapping of five mining employees in the department of Bolívar; the action was attributed to the National Liberation Army, the other communist guerrilla force in Colombia. President Juan Manuel Santos announced the captures at a Bogotá press conference on 20 January, observing that two of the detained were minors of unspecified age. He was speaking after an extraordinary security meeting to discuss the response to the end of the FARC ceasefire with the defence minister and army and police chiefs, the broadcaster Caracol reported.

Over 160 suspect policemen held in Mexico

Two police chiefs were among 158 policemen and police employees detained on 18 January in two districts of the north-central state of Durango, all suspected of aiding organized crime, the chief prosecutor of Durango announced. Sonia Yadira de la Garza Fragoso said 110 of the detained were district policemen of Lerdo and 48 of Gómez Palacio, Proceso reported. She said that initial questioning indicated the suspects had assisted criminals by means including providing information and protection or directly participating in criminal acts. In the eastern state of Veracruz, state and federal police detained at an unspecified date a gang of six suspected kidnappers including three policemen, involved in crimes in a zone that included Carlos A. Carrillo and Cosamaloapan, the districts where the policemen worked, Proceso reported on 18 January. A Public Security spokesman for Veracruz Ernesto González Quiroz said the public presentation of the criminal policemen showed "there is no space for impunity in Veracruz, and less so for those public servants obligated to protect citizens." The gang reportedly admitted when questioned to taking part in six kidnappings and acts of extortion and drug dealing. The website cited the Veracruz Public Security Secretary, who heads policing in the state, Arturo Bermúdez Zurita as saying on 18 January that some 2,500 policemen had been dismissed in the state since 2010 for failing "confidence" tests. Another official who vowed to crack down on police corruption on 18 January was Mexico's deputy-interior minister for Planning, Manuel Mondragón y Kalb, who appeared that day before the Senate Public Security Committee, Proceso reported. Mondragón, a former police chief of Mexico City, later told the press he would apply "zero tolerance for corruption, however far it goes, whatever the means and whenever it has to happen. I don't care what is said about this. When I fight corruption I will not tolerate or permit it." Mondragón said three "fundamental" sectors - Mexico's 15 federal prisons, the Federal Police and the police data gathering system (Plataforma México) - were currently undergoing operational scrutiny. Mondragón would head the National Public Security Council (CNSP), a policy-making organ, once approved by the Senate.

Over 20 shot, found dead around Mexico

Some 20 people were reported killed in executions or gun fights with state forces, or found dead around Mexico on 18-19 January, Proceso reported. These included: five suspected criminals killed in a shootout with police and the army on the night of 18-19 January in the north-western district of Mochis in the state of Sinaloa, and six shot dead by troops and police in the district of Puente Nacional in the east-coast state of Veracruz. Thousands of troops and federal policemen have been sent to Veracruz within the Veracruz Seguro operation, in a bid to curb a surge in organized crime there. The operation was recently extended to the Sotavento zone in the state that includes Puente Nacional, the district where troops reportedly came under fire late on 18 January, Proceso reported. The website reported the discovery in Estado de México of the bodies of three men apparently shot to death; they were found on 19 January by a road linking Toluca and Temascaltepec. In addition six bodies were discovered on 18 January in the states of Estado de México, Puebla and Morelos; one of the victims here was found cut into bits, and three in a state of "advanced" putrefaction in the district of Tochimilco in the state of Puebla. Six skeletons or the bones of six people, were found in a house in the west-coast district of Acapulco on 18 or 19 January, the daily El Universal reported.

El Salvador gangs to avoid violence in four districts

Mediators announced the start on 18 January of the second phase of a ceasefire between El Salvador's main criminal gangs, naming four districts as "sanctuary municipalities" that were to be gradually rid of violent crime in following days, Europa Press reported. The ceasefire began in March 2012 and officials believe it has significantly reduced violent crime in El Salvador. The municipalities were named by the army bishop and the former leftist guerrilla Raul Mijango who have been acting as mediators between the state and several gangs. In a communiqué issued on 19 January five gangs promised to respect the four sanctuaries and qualified this as part of a process "whose objective is to fully abandon all criminal activity." They also stated that they would continue to "disarm" and hand over weapons to "facilitators" of the Organization of American States, which is assisting the pacification process in El Salvador, Europa Press reported. They asked the government to design a legal framework for this disarmament. The statement was signed by the gangs MSX3, Barrio 19, Mao-Mao, Máquina and Mirada Locos, while the four districts due to become sanctuaries from violence were named as Santa Tecla, Sonsonate, Llopango and Quezaltepeque, the latter a reputed crime hot-spot, Europa Press reported. El Salvador's La Prensa Gráfica reported on 20 January that the gangs were prepared to extend the ceasefire to 18 other districts, adding however that they had made no commitment to discontinue extortion.

Guerrillas kidnap five in northern Colombia

Five or more people were reported kidnapped in northern Colombia early on 18 January, it was suspected by guerrillas of the left-wing National Liberation Army (ELN), Europa Press reported citing army declarations. The five were employees of a mining or energy company and apparently kidnapped by a group of 25 guerrillas in the southern part of Bolívar, a department whose territory reaches the Caribbean coast. President Juan Manuel Santos was reported as having written on the website Twitter that the army had reacted and the guerrillas were already "within its range." Colombian troops were reported earlier as fighting the ELN in the Boyacá department south of Bolívar, and Europa Press observed the kidnapping followed by a day a gunfight there that killed an ELN guerrilla. Separately Colombia's police chief José Roberto León Riaño was reported as declaring the same day that police thwarted a suspected bid by guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to strike at targets in and outside Bogotá when a two-month ceasefire is to end on 20 January. The FARC declared the unilateral ceasefire last November to coincide with ongoing negotiations with Colombian representatives in Havana. Police discovered grenades and 250 kilograms of explosives as well as diagrams of several installations - the suspected targets - in an unspecified location in the district of La Palma north of Bogotá. León said the find indicated the FARC were planning to blow up three police and military academies in Bogotá and in the district of Sibaté south-west of Bogotá, the broadcaster Caracol reported.

Nineteen reported killed around Mexico

Nineteen people or perhaps more including children were reported killed or found dead, in cases dismembered or beheaded, in incidents around Mexico on 16-17 January, Proceso reported. Two of these were identified as aged 15 and 17 and found shot dead late on 16 January in the northern district of Torreón. The bodies of three other young men were found very late on 17 January in Estado de México, by a road linking Mexico City and Puebla. They had been shot dead, La Jornada reported on 18 January, the daily observed that in total 33 were reported killed in that state during 14-17 January. In the south-eastern state of Tabasco a body was found in a burned car and provisionally identified as belonging to the missing former mayor of the district of Paraíso, Cristóbal Javier Ángulo. A member of the left-wing Democratic Revolutionary Party, Ángulo was mayor from 2010 to 2012 and apparently last seen on 16 January when he drove out of Paraíso toward the city of Villahermosa, Proceso reported. Three suspected criminals were reported gunned down by troops and police in the eastern port of Veracruz. A conservative politician, his wife and three-year-old son were gunned down late on 17 January in the central state of Morelos. Ignacio Domínguez Carranza had been a mayoral candidate of the National Action Party for the district of Tlalquiltenango where he died when armed men fired "hundreds of times" on his home from a convoy of cars, Proceso reported. The state governor deplored the crime and wrote on the website Twitter that the culprits would be punished. The daily El Universal separately reported that a man was killed in Mexico City on 16 January as he resisted a car theft.

President insists security improving in Honduras

President Porfirio Lobo Sosa has insisted that security in Honduras, one of the world's most violent countries, had improved in spite of assertions to the contrary by domestic and foreign observers, the daily La Prensa reported on 16 January. He told pressmen in the capital Tegucicalpa that "everyone feels" security had improved in Honduras even if "there will always be problems," adding that curbing crime was not in any case the task of government. He said he hoped the next government would "keep going, keep working on the security theme and the citizenry has to participate too, everyone must make an effort." He contradicted comments made earlier by his Security Minister Pompeyo Bonilla Reyes who told a local radio station that 800 security cameras placed around the capital had stopped working as authorities owed the equivalent of some five million USD to the firm operating the cameras. Bonilla reportedly declared that the police radio-communication system was also about to be cut off; Lobo dismissed his comments as "a bit dramatic" and said the relevant firm had not "turned off" the capital's security cameras. The government was seeking ways to pay the firm's money, Lobo said. Some of Bonilla's comments were reported by the daily La Tribuna; he was cited as saying that cameras stopped working in early January, and blamed this on the government's cash shortage. According to La Prensa the government had a shortfall in revenues and state employees or some state employees in the health and education ministries but also the armed forces were not paid last December. It reported on 3 January that only about one tenth of a security tax imposed in 2012 to finance policing and security had been spent. The state collected some 857 million Honduran Lempiras (HNL), a little under USD 43 million, between April and 27 December 2012 but only about HNL 80 million had been spent so far, this by the Security Ministry. The tax brought in HNL 90 million in December alone, La Prensa reported. It cited the compaints of members of the business community dissatisfied with paying the tax as well as considerable amounts on private security.

Colombian troops kill guerrilla, arrest two

Troops shot dead a member of the National Liberation Army (ELN) in a gunfight on 15 or 16 January in the district of Pajarito north-east of the capital Bogotá, El Espectador reported. The daily stated that army operations were continuing in the area, in the department of Boyacá. One of the detained was described as a child or teenager of unspecified age, wearing a Colombian army uniform; he was handed over to child welfare authorities. Arms and ammunition were later confiscated.

Ten killed in Mexico, states to boost security

Ten were reported as found dead or gunned down in shootouts and executions around Mexico on 15-16 January. Five of these were killed in the north-eastern state of Tamaulipas, including two cartel suspects shot by the army in Ciudad Victoria. Two others found dead in that city had a written message by them presumably placed by their assassins, alleging they had earlier kidnapped and murdered an army captain. The army confirmed the officer was buried in Ciudad Victoria on 13 January. A message left by the body of another victim found in Ciudad Victoria on 16 January alleged that he had been killed for thieving; authorities suspected he was killed by the Zetas cartel. Other killings that day occurred in the states of Durango and Estado de México and in the west-coast district of Acapulco, Proceso reported. One of the dead was a 16-year-old found with his throat slit in the Valle de Chalco district in Estado de México. A recent surge in killings in Estado de México in central Mexico, prompted authorities to consider deploying troops in its more crime-ridden districts. On 16 January the state's chief prosecutor Miguel Ángel Contreras Nieto blamed the recent surge on a fight between two criminal groups the Familia Michoacana and Guerreros Unidos; their turf war had killed 25 in the preceding 72 hours he said. While there was no "security crisis" in the state he declared, state and federal authorities were discussing the option of deploying troops, Proceso reported. Separately the governor of the eastern state of Veracruz Javier Duarte de Ochoa said state police would take over security in the Sotavento region in the state and specifically the district of Úrsulo Galván following the disappearance of eight municipal policemen there, Proceso reported on 16 January. He was apparently speaking in Úrsulo Galván, whose authorities have asked the state to take over its security. Duarte said state police would be acting in the framework of the Veracruz Seguro operation that has boosted the presence of state forces including troops around the state of Veracruz. He called on residents in the Sotavento zone to remain calm, while citing the operation's possible expansion to more districts. The Veracruz Seguro plan has so far seen increased police and military presence principally in the Veracruz-Boca del Río conurbation on the coast and in several districts with greater criminal activity.

Six women killed in Guatemala

Six women including two girls aged six and 12 were killed or found dead in Ciudad de Guatemala and in the department of Zacapa north-east of the capital on 16 January, the daily Prensa Libre reported. The girls had apparently been strangled to death and were left on a street in their pyjamas at one in the morning. These were some of the victims of the steady trickle of crimes daily reported in Guatemala. On 15 January the mayor of the town of Jutiapa near the frontier with El Salvador was shot dead inside a barber's shop, Prensa Libre reported. The Interior Minister later declared he suspected the assassination to be the work of organized crime. Prensa Libre also reported on 15 January the shooting death of a businessman in the San Miguel Petapa district south of the capital; he was the brother of Rafael Eduardo González Rosales, mayor of San Miguel Petapa in 2008-12. The same day a bus passenger was shot dead by thieves who boarded a bus travelling between Guatemala City and Quezaltenango, Prensa Libre reported. The passenger had refused to hand over his belongings as asked.