Guatemala shocked by murder of young girls - BBC News

16 January 2013 Last updated at 15:37 ET

Guatemalan police are investigating the killing of four females whose bodies were found overnight in a district of the capital, Guatemala City.

Two of the victims - who were wearing pyjamas at the time of death - were girls aged six and 12. They displayed apparent signs of strangulation.

Police are trying to establish whether the four murders are linked.

More than 600 women were killed in Guatemala in 2010, according to official figures.

The bodies of the two girls were found in the early hours of Wednesday in the streets of the Zona 11 neighbourhood, in southern Guatemala City.

Police found bodies of two other women, thought to be aged between 20 and 35, in the same district. One of them had been shot in the face.

It is not clear whether they were victims of domestic violence or murdered by criminal gangs.

"Guatemala awoke in mourning," campaign group Survivors' Foundation said in a statement. "We demand these crimes be solved."

'Culture of impunity'

Two other women were killed overnight in the town of La Union, in eastern Zacapa province.

They were shot dead outside a school, the authorities said.

Legislation against domestic violence was introduced in 2008, but campaign groups describe a culture of impunity in the Central American nation.

From 1960 to 1996, Guatemala was engulfed in civil war between left-wing guerrillas and the government. Rape was widely used as a weapon of war to intimidate opponents.

President Otto Perez Molina, who took office a year ago, launched a campaign a year ago to curb domestic violence.

In his state-of-the-nation address on Monday, he hailed Guatemala's "historic decline in violence" in 2012.

Murders were down by some 10%, he said.

According to government figures, there were 5,174 violent deaths in Guatemala last year.

In recent years, Guatemala has had one of the highest per capita murder rates in the world, according to the United Nations: 40 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2010.

The country has struggled to cope with an increase of violence generated by drug gangs operating throughout Central America, such as the Zetas from neighbouring Mexico.