And while the city streets are a war zone - tensions at the western border are also very high this evening.
That's after a BDF soldier allegedly shot a Guatemalan civilian this morning near the border on the Belize side.
It happened in the hotspot near Caracol. This morning, a group of BDF soldiers were waiting for their Guatemalan counterparts for to conduct a joint border patrol - which is a long-standing part of the confidence building measures.
While they waited for the Guatemalan soldiers, they saw five Guatemalan civilians - one of them armed with an assault rifle.
Major Dalton Roches, the Operations Training Officer for the BDF told us more:…
Major Dalton Roches, Operations Training Officer - BDF
"While on patrol at the link up position the patrol as per normal would do their security of the area and where they were doing that they saw 5 Guatemalans coming across the borderline into Belize and one of them had a AK-47 assault rifle and the others had short arms along with machetes. The security team asks the individuals to halt and they reach for their weapon and on that point the security team had to open fire at the individual who pull the assault rifle."
"It is believed that one person got injured because they saw this person fell and the remainder got that individual and pull him in the bush. They withdraw from that location as the individuals fled back to what we referred to as our base position and then farther we draw back to Caracol location because this is in the general area of the Caracol ruins. The team was later extracted."
"However you got to keep in mind that you are not waiting for someone to fire a round at you on the borderline. This individual and the others that were accompanying raise their weapons at the patrol. We believe the patrol felt threatened and by so they return fire."
The extent of injuries to the Guatemalan civilian is not known as he was taken back into Guatemalan territory. The joint patrol did not happen. This is the second time in a month that a joint patrol has had to be postponed because of a skirmish with armed and hostile Guatemalan civilians.
Email
Print