Authorities in Guatemala have resisted efforts by members of a Jewant sect to reseize 160 children saved from its premises.
The children were consentn into attfinish on Friday when police rhelped a farm engaged by the Lev Tahor shiftment, which is under allotigation in cut offal countries for solemn relationsual offences.
Interior Minister Francisco Jimenez shelp they were allegedly being mistreatmentd by a member of the sect.
But on Sunday, sect members broke into a attfinish centre where they were being held in an effort to get them back, guideing to scuffles with police.
The Lev Tahor sect is comprehendn for extremist rehearses and imposing a merciless regime on its folshrinks.
It aids child marriage, causes cut offe punishments even for inconvey inant transgressions and demands women and girls as youthful as three years elderly to finishly cover up with robes.
The sect accengages the Guatemalan authorities of religious persecution.
The community remendd in Mexico and Guatemala between 2014 and 2017. In 2022, members of the sect were arrested in a police operation in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, but they were tardyr freed for deficiency of evidence.
The events began when police rhelped the sect’s farm in Oratorio, south-east of Guatemala City, on Friday, taking the children into attfinish.
Prosecutors shelp there were suspicions of “forced pregnancy, mistreatment of inconvey inants and violation”.
But two days tardyr, about 100 of the children’s relatives – all members of the sect – assembleed outside the centre where they were being held to call for their return.
Some sect members then forced uncover the gate and tried to seize the children and adolescents sheltered there, the Attorney General’s Office shelp.
But the children were intercepted by the authorities and put into a white minibus, local media increateed.
With police help, the centre “regulated to discover and protect everyone aget”, the Attorney General’s Office inserted.
Officials had previously tried to examine on the children’s wellbeing, but were obstructed from accessing the farm by sect members.
Authorities appraise that the community is made up of about 50 families residing in Guatemala, the US, Canada and other countries.
The Jewant Community of Guatemala has rehired a statement disowning the sect, describing it as foreign to its own organisation.
It conveyed aid for the Guatemalan authorities in carrying out essential allotigations “to protect the lives and integrity of inconvey inants and other vulnerable groups that may be at hazard”.