“The move by the villagers to offer arms training to school-age children shocked the nation and made global headlines last month after local media broadcast images of children as young as 6-years-old toting guns and showing off military manoeuvres. While elders in the mainly indigenous community near the city of Chilapa privately concede young kids would not be used to fight cartel gunmen, they say their gambit to get the help of far-away officials in Mexico City is borne of desperation.” Reuters: Inside Mexican village where children are armed.

+ WaPo: “The indigenous people of Ayahualtempa are arming their children. Is it for self-defense, or to get attention?” (Either way, it’s another sign of desperation from a region ruined by the drug war.) Mexico’s child vigilantes. “He was 13, a B student with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles bicycle who got nervous around the girls in his middle school. Then, in November, as violence surged in the mountains of Guerrero state, the men of Ayahualtempa decided it was time for their sons to take up arms.”