GUATEMALA CITY, (Reuters) – At least 27 people were killed this weekend in a Guatemalan village near the border with Mexico in one of the worst mass killings in a generation, local police said.
The bloody incident started when 200 raiders attacked the small town of Caserio La Bomba about 275 miles [440 km] north of the capital, police said.
Two women were among the victims in the attack, said police, who were trying to determine the exact time of the attack and searching for more bodies.
“This is the worst massacre we have seen in modern times,” police spokesman Donald Gonzalez told Reuters.
Police said the slayings could be linked to the Saturday slaying of 56-year-old Haroldo Waldemar Leon, the brother of suspected drug trafficker Juan Jose Leon, who was gunned down in a rural area of northern Guatemala.
Juan Jose Leon was wanted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, but was killed in 2008.
Police linked Juan Jose Leon’s killing to the powerful Mexican drug cartel, Las Zetas. Guatemala’s northern border is an active drug transfer point for cocaine moving north from South America.
