3 Guatemalan Gold Panners are Caught in the Chiquibul by the B.D.F.

There’s another incident that happened late last week. A trio of Guatemalans panning for gold inside the Ceibo Chico area of the Chiquibul Forest Reserve has been arrested and charged after being detained on Friday night.  The three men were part of a larger group of about fifteen illegals operating in the vicinity.  Their detention, however, was not without incident, as personnel from the Belize Defense Force opened fire on a machete wielding poacher.  Twenty-three-year-old Carlos Roberto Perez Hernandez reportedly advanced towards members of the Belizean patrol despite a warning shot being fired to keep him at bay.  Notwithstanding an attempt to stave off the attacker, the B.D.F. soldier, in defending himself, shot Hernandez in the left upper arm.  The encounter occurred shortly before eight o’clock in an area approximately eight kilometers east of the Belize/Guatemala border.  Along with Hernandez were seventeen-year-old Edin Alexander Escobar Garcia and twenty-one-year-old Solomon Martinez Pasqual.  After rendering first aid to the wounded poacher, the three captives were then escorted to the San Ignacio Police Station.  Hernandez was treated and released from the hospital into police custody.  This afternoon they were arraigned on a battery of charges, including illegal entry into a national park.  In an update to this latest incident, Guatemalan Foreign Minister Carlos Raul Morales has admitted that the men were indeed inside Belizean territory conducting illicit activities.