Police arrested 22 Kekchi residents of Purula, 118 miles (190 km) north of
                 Guatemala City, for helping to hang the boy and two men on Sunday night, then
                 burning them and burying their bodies in a common grave, National Police and
                 rescue officials said.

                 The bodies were recovered on Monday morning, when police were allowed to enter
                 after being barred by residents. Officials said they did not know what prompted the
                 lynchings.

                 Some 48 people have been lynched this year in Guatemala, often burned alive, as
                 largely uneducated indigenous residents, frustrated with an often ineffective law
                 enforcement system take justice into their own hands.

                 The phenomenon arose in 1996, soon after a peace agreement was signed to end 36
                 years of bloody civil war in the largely Indian nation.

                 The United Nations said in a report last year that former civil patrols trained and
                 armed by the military were often behind the lynchings.

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