Indigenous people block route with coffins to demand justice after massacre that left 13 dead in Guatemala | PHOTOS

With stones, sticks and a row of wooden coffins with the bodies of several of the 13 victims of a massacre perpetrated over the weekend in Guatemala, dozens of residents blocked the Inter-American highway on Monday, which connects the capital with the west of the country.

The coffins were placed on the road that leads to Santa Catarina Ixtahuacán, 170 km west of Guatemala City, by dozens of relatives and neighbors who demand justice and ask the government of Alejandro Giammattei to put an end once and for all to a territorial conflict of more than 100 years with inhabitants of a neighboring municipality, whom they accuse of the massacre.

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Protesters and family members watched over their dead on the road, where they erected an altar with flowers, candles, incense smoke, and photographs of the 13 murdered children, women and the elderly.

Among the shouts of protest could be heard the heartrending cry of several women dressed in the colorful indigenous costumes of the Mayan-K’iche ‘ethnic group.

“There are no words to describe how I feel”, Alonzo Guarchaj, 30, told AFP, holding back tears, in front of the hearse that carries the coffin with the remains of his father, an octogenarian evangelical pastor with the same name.

“We leave everything to God and (may) vengeance be his”he added.

Lying on the road, the protesters asked the government to solve the old conflict with the neighboring municipality of Nahualá, of the same indigenous ethnic group.

The government announced on Monday the arrest of three suspected perpetrators of the massacre.

“No longer, we are brothers!”a villager shouted from a truck where several community leaders took the floor to urge Giammattei to commit to defining the boundary between the villages.

Limit, “the solution”

On Saturday night, the police reported the murder of 13 people in the Chiquix village, in Nahualá territory, in addition to the location of a semi-burned truck and a patrol with bullet holes.

The victims, originally from Santa Catarina Ixtahuacán and who were going to collect corn, were the target of an ambush perpetrated by armed men.

One of the 13 victims was a policeman who was guarding the task as a result of the conflict in the area, said the attorney for Human Rights, Jordán Rodas. The version was confirmed by villagers.

“The ambushed families, after being murdered, were burned inside the truck where they were driving, and the children were dismembered with machetes.”Said Rodas in a report on the massacre that the residents linked to the border conflict.

A man cries over a coffin of one of the people killed in the town of Chiquix, during a ceremony in Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan, Guatemala. (Photo: Johan ORDONEZ / AFP) (JOHAN ORDONEZ /)

This Monday, after the delivery of the bodies in the morgue of the nearby city of Quetzaltenango, the death of three minors who were brothers was confirmed. His parents were also murdered.

“The municipal territorial limit, that is the solution. Because only agreements no, Mr. President, it has to be the territorial limit of both peoples and thus there will be peace and tranquility “, asked the government Sabino Tambriz (40), councilor of the municipality of Santa Catarina Ixtahuacán.

Dressed in a gray jacket and mask, he recalled the “failure” of a dialogue installed by the government in the middle of last year after a new escalation of violence that led Giammattei to decree a state of siege in the area.

“We want a territorial limit. We don’t want shots anymore “, pointed to a banner held by a girl at the protest. “We hold the government responsible for the death of children, women and the elderly (, …) massacred by criminals”Read another poster.

“All measures”

The government reported on Sunday in a statement the capture of three men allegedly responsible for the massacre.

“The authorities will take all the necessary measures to guarantee security, respect for life, peace and governability in (the department of) Sololá”, the government pointed out.

Indigenous communities, many of which live in poverty, represent more than 40% of the 17 million inhabitants of Guatemala.

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