Police shot and killed six kidnappers today in an operation to rescue an abducted university student from a house in the Guatemalan highlands.
Ms Irma Alejandra Molina, found tied and blindfolded at a house in a corn field in the department of Quetzaltenango, was rescued during the shootout, police said.
"There was a battle ... the criminals fired at the police, and the information that we have is that there are six dead," Deputy Interior Minister Angel Conte told local radio.
Ms Molina's family did not pay a $300,000 ransom demanded by her captors for the release of the student, kidnapped on May 27th.
"She was rescued during the battle. A group of agents entered the house, covered her and pulled her out while under fire," a police spokesman said.
More than 100 police were reportedly involved in the dawn operation to free Ms Molina, who was being held just outside the village of Agua Tibia.
Crime is rampant in Guatemala, with almost 1,500 murders in the first five months of 2004. Only five per cent of murders are ever resolved, according to Human Rights Ombudsman Mr Sergio Morales.
Kidnapping statistics are harder to come by because most cases go unreported to the police.
Extreme poverty, emigration and family breakdown are believed to contribute to the wave of violence - although many analysts say it is a legacy of a three-decade civil war that ended in 1996 after 200,000 people had been killed or disappeared.
Many members of organized crime gangs started out in shadowy military intelligence groups and death squads during the war.