{"id":524754,"date":"2026-01-18T08:49:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T08:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/524754\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T08:49:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T08:49:20","slug":"inmates-in-3-guatemalan-prisons-hold-dozens-of-guards-hostage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/524754\/","title":{"rendered":"Inmates in 3 Guatemalan prisons hold dozens of guards hostage"},"content":{"rendered":"

GUATEMALA CITY — Several dozen Guatemalan<\/a> prison guards were being held hostage by inmates in three prisons Saturday following apparently coordinated disturbances, authorities said.<\/p>\n

Interior Minister Marco Antonio Villeda said he was willing to talk with the inmates, but would not accede to their demands in seeking the release of the 46 guards.<\/p>\n

Earlier Saturday, Villeda\u2019s agency said in a statement that the inmate uprising was a direct result of the prison administrators\u2019 decision to strip privileges from some imprisoned gang leaders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Guatemala, we don\u2019t negotiate with terrorists nor with organized crime,\u201d the statement said. \u201cWe also don\u2019t allow groups that have sown fear to impose their conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

National Police were deployed around the affected prisons. There were no reports of injuries or deaths.<\/p>\n

In videos circulated on social platforms, some prisoners demanded transfer.<\/p>\n

In October, President Bernardo Ar\u00e9valo<\/a>accepted the resignations<\/a> of three top security officials, including Villeda\u2019s predecessor, after authorities admitted that 20 gang members had escaped over a period of days.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe link between the prison system and the criminality outside has to be cut,\u201d Ar\u00e9valo said in an interview with The Associated Press Thursday. \u201cThat\u2019s why all this effort to regain control of the prison system is very important.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GUATEMALA CITY — Several dozen Guatemalan prison guards were being held hostage by inmates in three prisons Saturday…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[233175,347,4219,57,4221,15127,2936,50,2938,2060,103,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-524754","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-233175","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-crime","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-homicide","13":"tag-hostage-situations","14":"tag-law-enforcement","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-prisons","17":"tag-rebellions-and-uprisings","18":"tag-world","19":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115915244453053289","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}