Guatemala City

Revelers burn effigies of the devil and household junk in the annual tradition. The “Burning of the Devil” is meant to symbolize a day of purification ahead of the Catholic festival of the Immaculate Conception.

Hundreds of Guatemalans gathered Saturday to protest an agreement that President Jimmy Morales’ government signed with Washington to require migrants passing through the Central American country to seek asylum here, rather than pushing on to the U.S. Carrying the blue and white national flag, demonstrators rallied in front of the presidential palace in Guatemala City. They called on Morales to...

Thousands of Central Americans journeying toward the United States were 2,500 miles from their destination in October when they reached a moment of decision: Should they press on toward the U.S. border? Or should they stop and put down roots in Mexico, where the government offered to let them stay? Pueblo Sin Fronteras, a group of activists escorting the caravan,...

A growing throng of Central American migrants resumed their advance toward the U.S. border in southern Mexico on Sunday, overwhelming Mexican government attempts to stop them at the border. Their numbers swelled to about 5,000 overnight and at first light they set out walking toward the Mexican town of Tapachula, 10 abreast in a line stretching approximately a mile (1.5...

Guatemala’s Volcano of Fire released a flow of burning sediment and rock Saturday, causing authorities to order new preventative evacuations almost a week after the initial eruption left at least 110 people dead and about 200 missing. Guatemala’s seismology and vulcanology institute said the new lahar — a flow of mud, debris, water and pyroclastic material — was fed by...

Guatemala’s Volcano of Fire released a flow of burning sediment and rock Saturday, causing authorities to order new preventative evacuations almost a week after the initial eruption left at least 110 people dead and about 200 missing. Guatemala’s seismology and vulcanology institute said the new lahar — a flow of mud, debris, water and pyroclastic material — was fed by...

Rescuers pulled survivors and bodies from the charred aftermath of the powerful eruption of Guatemala’s Volcano of Fire, as the death toll rose to 69 on Monday and was expected to go higher from a disaster that caught residents of remote mountain hamlets off guard, with little or no time to flee to safety. Using shovels and backhoes, emergency workers...

The March 8 fire that killed 40 girls at the Virgen de la Asunción Safe Home started when ringleaders took a match to a foam mattress to protest the abuse they had suffered there. Their hell at the government-run shelter began long before the inferno, as documented in several warnings from four different agencies. At least two orders for closure...

Guatemala’s president called for a restructuring of his country’s youth shelter system following a fire that killed at least 36 girls at an overcrowded government facility for children, while grieving families began receiving the bodies of their loved ones. The shelter outside Guatemala City held some 800 children and mixed victims of abuse with youthful offenders. Relatives and officials said...

At least 19 people died from a fire that broke out at a Guatemalan children’s shelter on Wednesday. The Virgin de Asuncion Home is just 15 miles outside of Guatemala City.

A U.S. fugitive wanted by the FBI for the Valentine’s Day 2008 killing of a woman in Southern California was deported from Guatemala on Tuesday, a day after he was captured in the Central American nation.