Guatemala: Families of a sect demand the return of 160 children

About a hundred members of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect in Guatemala, suspected of sexual violence against minors, gathered on Sunday to demand the return of the 160 children exfiltrated from a property of the group by the authorities, some having tried to take them back by force, noted AFP.

These families from the Lev Tahor group (“Pure Heart” in Hebrew) mobilized, under police surveillance, in front of a special care center in the capital Guatemala where minors are taken care of.

Authorities rescued 160 children on Friday from a sect property in Oratorio, about 60 kilometers southwest of the capital.

“We want them to let them out of here”

“We want them to let them out of here,” Uriel Goldman, a representative of the families, told AFP on Sunday.

Around 4:30 p.m. local time (11:30 p.m. Swiss time), members of the sect “burst” into the care center, “kidnapping” several children before they were located and then recovered with the help of the police, explained the Attorney General of the Nation in a message on X.

People outside the shelter tried to help members of Lev Tahor, trying to prevent the authorities from taking the minors back, which led to clashes, reported an AFP photographer on site.

“False denunciations”

The search of the sect's property was motivated by suspicions of human trafficking “in the form of forced pregnancies, child abuse and rape,” prosecutor Dimas Jiménez said at a press conference.

The searches led to the discovery of the presumed bones of a minor, added the prosecution.

Uriel Goldman estimated on Sunday that these were “false denunciations”, citing “external pressure (to) destroy the community” which includes some 50 families, mainly from Guatemala, the United States and Canada.

An ultra-orthodox form of Judaism

The Lev Tahor sect was founded in the 1980s and practices an ultra-Orthodox form of Judaism, which requires women to wear black tunics that cover them from head to toe.

The group settled in Oratorio in 2016, after raids by police and prosecutors against several of its buildings in Guatemala, the country where it arrived in 2013. At the time, the authorities said they were acting at the request of Israel, whose police were looking for a missing minor.

In 2014, the sect was expelled from a village due to several disputes with residents.

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