Guatemala police confront Jewish sect over 160 youngsters in danger

Authorities in Guatemala have resisted efforts by members of a Jewish sect to take again 160 youngsters rescued from its premises.

The kids had been picked up Friday throughout a police raid on a farm utilized by the Lev Tahor motion, which is beneath investigation in a number of international locations for severe intercourse crimes.

Inside Minister Francisco Jimenez stated they had been allegedly victims of abuse by a member of the sect.

However on Sunday, members of the sect broke right into a care heart the place they had been being held to attempt to get better them, resulting in scuffles with police.

The Lev Tahor sect is thought for its extremist practices and for imposing a strict regime on its followers.

It advocates little one marriage, imposes harsh punishments even for minor transgressions, and requires that girls and women as younger as three be totally coated in robes.

The sect accuses Guatemalan authorities of spiritual persecution.

The group settled in Mexico and Guatemala between 2014 and 2017. In 2022, members of the sect had been arrested throughout a police operation within the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, however they were later released due to lack of evidence.

The occasions started when police raided the sect’s farm in Oratorio, southeast of Guatemala Metropolis, on Friday and took the youngsters into custody.

Prosecutors stated there have been suspicions of “pressured being pregnant, little one abuse and rape.”

However two days later, round 100 kinfolk of the youngsters, all members of the sect, gathered in entrance of the middle the place they had been detained to demand their return.

Some members of the sect then pressured the gate and tried to kidnap the youngsters and adolescents who had been housed there, the lawyer common’s workplace stated.

However the youngsters had been intercepted by authorities and put right into a white minibus, native media reported.

With the assistance of the police, the middle “managed to find and defend everybody once more,” the lawyer common’s workplace added.

Authorities had beforehand tried to test on the youngsters’s well-being, however cult members prevented them from coming into the farm.

Authorities estimate the group is made up of roughly 50 households residing in Guatemala, the US, Canada and different international locations.

Guatemala’s Jewish group issued an announcement disavowing the sect, describing it as alien to its personal group.

He expressed his help for the Guatemalan authorities in finishing up the required investigations “to guard the life and integrity of minors and different susceptible teams who could also be at risk.”