Quite rightly, the world was outraged a while back when all those horrific stories emerged of child soldiers being used, mainly in African conflict zones. But, less well known are the gangs in Central America - Guatemala, to be precise - where, as some sort of macabre initiation rite, kids are forced to kill. Aaron Lewis went to look at how these kids are living - and it has to be said, dying - on the streets of the capital, Guatemala City. A warning though, some of you may find scenes in Aaron's story distressing.
REPORTER: Aaron Lewis
Today is the Guatemala City fair. People have come in the thousands hoping for safety in numbers. There was a time when children could play in Guatemala City without the fear of violence. But times have changed. This is the story of how Guatemala City became one of the most dangerous places in the Americas.
CANDY MEJIA (Translation): We were standing here with my husband and another guy was with us. When I heard the first shot, I turned to look.
Candy Mejia has brought me to the spot where her entire family was caught in crossfire during a gang gunfight.
CANDY MEJIA (Translation): They started shooting. I just tried to protect my daughter, the little one... my older daughter started running uphill. Then she came back when she saw they were shooting at her father's legs, and was shot in the chest. I tried to move and took about three steps, but I fell to the ground because I'd been shot.
The gang wars have left scars all over the city.
CANDY MEJIA (Translation): You have bullet marks where the shootings took place.
During the shooting the eldest of Candy's two daughters was shot in the lung, and fell to the ground.
CANDY MEJIA (Translation): I thought she'd fainted. I didn't see any blood. As she couldn't breathe, I thought she'd fainted. She was complaining, but I never thought that she was dying. They said she died on the way to the hospital.
If Candy's neighbourhood is dangerous in the day at night it's a war zone. Tonight I'm on a police patrol in what's called the Red Zone, Guatemala's gangs are fighting for control of these streets, within an hour, encircling only a few blocks we pass two gang-related murders. Fausto Garcia joined the force two years ago. Even armed to the teeth, he knows he's hopelessly outgunned.
FAUSTO GARCIA, POLICE (Translation): I was 24 years old when I went into a red zone for the first time. I wasn't even armed, I just had a baton. And some people would say "If you don't have a weapon, you're not a cop!" And that's what made me more nervous. That the people I was there to help were practically telling me they didn't want to see me there without a gun.
The gangs began life in Los Angeles, California and came to Central America with a wave of deported criminals in the 1990s. The two biggest are the 18th Street gang and Mara Salvatrucha - 18, and MS - bitter rivals for turf, drugs, and extortion money.
RAUL LEON, ‘SLEEPY’ GANGSTER (Translation): I've killed two policemen. But they're afraid, if they're alone, they run. But I was taught to fight. For them, it's just a job. For us, it's our life. Our job, our life, to kill or be killed, to live or die.
It's gangsters like Raul Leon, aka 'Sleepy' who have turned these neighbourhoods into war zones. Sleepy controls a large wing of Mara Salvatrucha. A meeting with Sleepy is a rare chance and only happens when I agree to meet him late at night and deep in his territory. He grew up on the street, alone, frightened and a drug addict and pusher by the age of eight.
‘SLEEPY’ (Translation): And then some homies came to us from different areas to get us to join the gangs. To convince us to be part of the family, to be part of a family that loves you, that understands you, a family that's just like you.
The offer to join a new 'family' is the way that gangs recruit young street kids, especially orphans from the gang wars and they get them as early as they can.
‘SLEEPY’ (Translation): That's how it is. You're recruited between 8 to 12 years old. That way, members serve from the heart. So they're totally committed. The boys they find are alienated... kids who have suffered. So they put their hearts into the gang and they're willing to live and die for the gang.
The first part of the gang initiation is a mission and Sleepy's came almost immediately.
‘SLEEPY’ (Translation): We went by car. I was pulled out of the car a block away. They told me who I had to kill. I was to go to his neighbourhood and kill him and I shot him twice in the head.
Murder missions like Sleepy's are so common that a man on the street gave me this footage of one he had recorded on his mobile phone. Juan Carlos Rivera has his own brutal history of violence. He joined the 18th Street gang at just 10 years of age.
JUAN CARLOS RIVERA (Translation): I told them I wanted to be part of the gang because I didn't have the warmth of a family. They told me I had three days to complete the mission. And if I couldn't do it... they would kill me. I said that was OK. They told me I had to kill a friend of mine.
Two nights later, three friends went walking. Juan Carlos had been given a snubnose .357 Magnum that he kept tucked into his pants. The oldest began to suspect that he had been targeted.
JUAN CARLOS RIVERA (Translation): He realised something was up and started to run. He went down a back alley and I thought "They'll kill me tomorrow." Because it was the third night I went to the back alley, but with the gun in my hand. I shot him once. He flew into the air. He fell with his legs twisted, I emptied the gun and counted the shots. He was just lay there, asking for help.
Killing his friend was only the first part of the initiation. The second part is called the 'baptism' - it's a group beating by other, older members of the gang.
JUAN CARLOS RIVERA (Translation): When I started with the gang, I was 10 years old. The gang's initiation requirement was for me to get an 18-second beating. So I was beaten up by some guys aged between 29 and 30. I ended up critically wounded in hospital because of the beating. One of my legs was broken, so was one of my arms. These people were adults.
Sleepy tells me that these initiations are designed to turn kids into killers because kids are treated lightly by the law.
‘SLEEPY’ (Translation): If they caught me killing, I'd get 30 years jail, 30 years in prison, right? But if a kid gets caught killing, he only gets six years. So that's why it's better to send a kid.
JUAN CARLOS RIVERA (Translation): As a child I spent three years living in a bus, I slept there, it was very cold at times. For a while I was even eating straight out of the garbage, rummaging through bags to look for food. You get power hungry. You want people to fear you, and to respect you. And... I worked hard to achieve that. So I continued to... I continued to kill members of the other gang, the MS. I kept doing it, and at one stage, it became something of a hobby. It became a kind of pastime.
Battling the cops to a standstill takes more than just manpower - it takes cash. And the gangs' thirst for blood is matched only by their hunger for money.
REPORTER: Where does it come from?
‘SLEEPY’ (Translation): From the 'rent', from extortion, from the sale of drugs and from the killings. We get paid for that.
CANDY MEJIA (Translation): Yes, they ask for 'taxes', they extort from the people, they steal and sell drugs, everything.
After her daughter was shot dead, Candy Mejia returned home from the hospital to take care of her surviving child, Lemonie. But the worst wasn't over.
CANDY MEJIA (Translation): Here you can see my husband and daughter. They took this picture on a day I wasn't with them.
Eight months after the first attack Candy's husband once again became an innocent victim caught up in the violence.
CANDY MEJIA (Translation): He left work but never made it home. He was killed. They say they were trying to steal his motorcycle. It was impossible for me to accept the idea he was dead. I only realised it was real when I saw him in the coffin, that day when I touched him and realised that he was dead. This photo was taken about six months before my daughter died. I like this one a lot.
Widowed, Candy was left to raise Lemonie, the 4-year-old girl shows the signs of the trauma. Lemonie is restless, even for her age, startles at any loud noise, and has wild mood swings.
CANDY MEJIA (Translation): It worries me a lot just knowing... the kind of life she's going to live, and how she feels. That worries me so much.
REPORTER: What do you do with all that anger?
CANDY MEJIA (Translation): I drown.
What was once a war between gang members has now turned outward, like Candy's husband, ordinary people are now made constant victims of theft, extortion, and murder. To fight back, people have started turning to shadowy vigilante groups.
RUDULPHO (Translation): Things got worse and worse in our community three years ago. They started to extort money from the locals. Five of us then decided we would organise ourselves.
This man, whose alias is 'Rudulpho', was one of the founding members of Guatemala's first "social cleansing groups" – a euphemism for a cabal of assassins. For Rudulpho, it started when his nephew was killed by the gangs.
RUDULPHO (Translation): He was buried up to his head, and they even cut off his ears. Innocent... innocent people. We saw the case of a young woman who had her feet, her hands and her ears cut off. That stays with you. You can't help it. These thugs do it to spread panic and to show how strong and violent they are.
Rudulpho's crew of five vigilantes grew to a membership of more than 30. These assassins are rarely investigated by police. Indeed, some police officers are suspected of outright collusion. Meanwhile, new social cleansing groups are popping up. Rudulpho says that victims of crime often call on him to "do the job".
REPORTER (Translation): What does "do the job" mean?
RUDULPHO (Translation): When we say "do the job", we mean eliminate a person. We do to him whatever he's done to the victim. So he can feel the same pain as the victim, as much pain as the family. So he feels the exact same thing, as we were saying, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
There's a saying here. There are only two ways out of the gangs - to get killed, or get God. Juan Carlos Rivera says that when he was 16 he almost made it out, along with his girlfriend Paol.
JUAN CARLOS RIVERA (Translation): I met her, fell in love with her... and... I thought I could make a life with her. I even thought of leaving the gang, and going to church in search of God.
But as with so many dreams in Guatemala this one was cut brutally short.
JUAN CARLOS RIVERA (Translation): We'd been living together for six months and she was three months pregnant when she was killed. She was three months pregnant when they killed her. She was with me in a taxi at the terminal in Zone 4. She was hit three times and I was shot nine times. The whole situation... everything had to do with hatred. It wasn't me doing things any more. It was my hatred.
It was then that Juan Carlos Rivera transformed into 'El Grillo' - a brutal killer now famous around Guatemala City. The tatoos on his face - war paint for his war on the world.
JUAN CARLOS RIVERA (Translation): A few months later I went to jail. I went to jail for cutting someone to pieces. I went to jail, and I was going to get 49 years. That's when I got this tattoo. I got the number 18 tattooed. I thought I was never coming out, my lawyer said we couldn't win.
Then, while he was in jail Juan Carlos's life hit a turning point.
JUAN CARLOS RIVERA (Translation): A fortnight after I got the tattoo, there was a prison riot and 25 gang members died. I got caught on the barbed wire fence, and I started praying to God. A friend from the same gang, who was close by, fell dead. This young guy had shot him. He shot me twice in the leg. But even then I prayed to God, saying to Him... suddenly I found new strength. I tore away from the barbed wire and I jumped over the wire fence.
Juan Carlos believes that his escape was a sign from God. His faith eventually gave him the courage to leave the gang and he's been taken in by a family from his church. But his life is now in constant danger, he's on the run from the police, and he's been "green lit" - gang members are under orders to kill him on sight. Despite this, he's determined to start life over.
JUAN CARLOS RIVERA (Translation): I want to find a job, and become a new person. To be an example, so people can say "If he's done it, so can we."
So he now spends his days praying for salvation - for himself, for his victims, and for his country.
JUAN CARLOS RIVERA (Translation): The old me is dead. Now I'm Juan Carlos, a child of God. I'm not El Grillo from gang 18, I've put all that behind me. That no longer exists for me. A lot of the time, I don't like remembering the past.
Reporter/Camera
AARON LEWIS
Editor
MICAH MCGOWN
SLAVICA GAJIC
Producer
AARON THOMAS
Fixer
MARIO LIMA
Translator
JORGE FREIRE
Subtitling
PILAR BALLESTEROS
JORGE TURINI
SORAYA CAICEDO
Original Music composed by
VICKI HANSEN