Following a 5.7 earthquake, the five men were lynched for allegedly robbing houses that had been destroyed in the Santa Maria de Jesus municipality.
Five men were lynched when villagers accused them of burglarising and destroying homes following an earthquake that hit Guatemala and left a trail of destruction.
Police spokesman Cesar Mateo explained to the AFP news agency late Friday that the men were charged with exploiting the darkness of the night to burglarise houses after the shocks, which caused residents to sleep in shelters or with relatives.
While it’s illegal to rob, lynching is also an offence,” Mateo stated. Guatemala’s Interior Ministry stated residents of the Santa Maria de Jesus municipality looked for the men late on Thursday and then obstructed authorities who attempted to detain and remove them.
The residents beat the men with stones and sticks and then torched them in the town, which is in the Sacatepequez department, southwest of the capital city. Santa Maria de Jesus suffered the most from the earthquake that caused shocks of up to 5.7 magnitude. At least seven individuals were reported killed in Guatemala following Tuesday’s earthquake.
Violent vigilante attacks are a common reaction to non-prosecuted criminals in Guatemala. Between 2008 and 2020, there were 361 people killed and 1,396 injured by vigilante justice, according to a local civil society organisation.
The quake left Santa Maria de Jesus, an Indigenous Mayan town, without electricity, and transportation access was blocked by landslides. Disaster coordination agency Conred, which has been assessing the extent of damage in the affected communities, reported that a shipment of solar lamps, buckets, mats, mosquito nets, blankets and kitchen sets has arrived courtesy of the United Nations refugee agency.
