Bbc World Service Outlook Listen Again
Several hundred drivers and administration have been targeted in recent years
OUTLOOK
Past Dave Lee
BBC World Service
For Guatemala City's bus drivers , going to piece of work could mean risking their lives.
Human rights group Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (Common Support Group) says that and so far this yr more than 175 of their colleagues have been murdered, many on busy streets, surrounded by traffic.
The killings accept been blamed on street gangs involved in extortion and intimidation.
Recently, fearfulness in the community has turned to anger - on 27 November, a riot led to two men and a woman being beaten and burned in public afterwards they were defendant of murdering a driver.
"If you lot don't pay on time they just kill someone," one driver, who wished to remain anonymous, told the BBC World Service'southward Sarah Grainger.
"They start killing drivers i past one."
The 24-twelvemonth-old was left paralysed from the waist down after a gang member shot him in the spine.
He now relies on his wife and mother to intendance for him, and makes his coin by selling children'due south toys in one of the metropolis'south most dangerous sectors, Zona 18.
"It was about seven o clock at night," he remembers.
"It was in the main street. Two men signalled for me to terminate for them, so I pulled over.
"And as I was opening the door for them, a kid with a gun appeared and started shooting.
"Thankfully I was only hit once, but the bullet went into my spine."
He was told he could bulldoze once again in a modified bus, but he says it'southward far too dangerous and expensive. He hopes 1 day to buy a modified taxi then he can bulldoze and make money in one case once again.
Paying up
The Guatemalan regular army and police now offer protection for the drivers and passengers, but this security is not ever available, and does non cover all the routes.
The killings may act equally a distraction from other crimes
Others say in that location should be a pre-pay arrangement put in place for transport to avoid big amounts of cash on board, only this would crave a massive infrastructure modify.
And so drivers now feel the only way to keep safe is to give in to the gangs' demands.
Groups of drivers will collectively concord to pay the extortionists off. If they pay on time, the drivers say they are then left alone.
Just on other routes, if fifty-fifty just one or 2 drivers resist the intimidation, the gangs will begin the killing.
Aside from money, others fearfulness a motive for the attacks is to create a distraction, forcing police to devote resources into dealing with the murders, allowing drug-traffickers to continue their work.
'God volition look after u.s.a.'
Ingrid Escobar lost her husband in 2007. She's 33 and has two children.
"It was the 3 August. He left early, at half past 4 in the forenoon, for his first shift.
"I took my children to school, and it was while I was dropping off my girl that friends came and told me that he'd been murdered."
Ingrid now faces a daily struggle to feed herself and her children.
"He said he could earn more doing that than equally a bricklayer or something else, and we needed the money to run the firm and take care of the children.
"We talked almost the possibility of him changing jobs. He said 'No, God will wait later usa'."
Pension
Some of the widows of murdered drivers take joined together to form the Association of Drivers' Widows.
The clan'south work has paid off. The Guatemalan authorities has at present started offer a monthly alimony to those afflicted by the killings, set at $36 (£21) per month, per child.
Last month, xviii widows received their beginning instalment, and a further 19 families will get money in December. The regime hopes that eventually all families left behind by killed passenger vehicle workers volition become this boosted income.
For people like Ingrid, the help volition come as a much needed heave to their lives.
"Sometimes there'south money for food, sometimes in that location isn't," she says.
"I haven't establish a job, but I'm studying and so I tin can go a job and peradventure borrow some money to make certain my children stay in school."
For the women with husbands still driving Republic of guatemala Urban center's buses, Ingrid pleads with them to try and find other work for their loved ones.
"They demand to understand. They should tell their husbands information technology'southward better to go out - they can't keep doing that job. I say that as someone who's lost their husband.
"My husband's murder remains unpunished. They've never defenseless the person who pulled the trigger."
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8386584.stm
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