GUATEMALA CITY - Three presumed gang members were shot and beaten to death today in the latest lethal clashes between street gangs in Guatemala's prisons.
The three prisoners, believed to be members of the Mara Salvatrucha street gang, were killed after being attacked with guns, stones and sticks by rivalgang Mara 18, according to police spokesman Carlos Calju.
The gangs, known collectively as "maras", co-existed for the most part peacefully in Guatemala's jails until grenade-tossing inmates from several prisons broke a pact not to fight each other behind bars last month and killed 36.
The two gangs, which have roots with Hispanic youth in Los Angeles, found fertile ground in poverty stricken and highly armed Central America when non US-born gang members began to be deported from US jails in the 1990s.
Many of the region's estimated 50,000 gang members, who are often in contact across borders and with others in Mexico and the United States, join the ultra-violent groups as a way of earning a living amid rampant unemployment.
In recent years the gangs have been blamed, and often accepted responsibility for, rapes, massacres and beheadings.
They are increasingly seen as an international security threat and are being tackled by cross-border police operations extending from the United States to Honduras.
