Authorities in Guatemala have resisted efforts by members of a Jewish sect to recapture 160 children rescued from its premises.
The children were taken into care on Friday when police raided a farm used by the Lev Tahor movement, which is under investigation in several countries for serious sexual offences.
Interior Minister Francisco Jimenez said they were allegedly being abused by a member of the sect.
But on Sunday, sect members broke into a care centre where they were being held in an effort to get them back, leading to scuffles with police.
The Lev Tahor sect is known for extremist practices and imposing a strict regime on its followers.
It advocates child marriage, inflicts harsh punishments even for minor transgressions and requires women and girls as young as three years old to completely cover up with robes.
The sect accuses the Guatemalan authorities of religious persecution.
The community settled in Mexico and Guatemala between 2014 and 2017. In 2022, members of the sect were arrested in a police operation in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, but they were later freed for lack of evidence.
The events began when police raided the sect’s farm in Oratorio, south-east of Guatemala City, on Friday, taking the children into care.
Prosecutors said there were suspicions of “forced pregnancy, mistreatment of minors and rape”.
But two days later, about 100 of the children’s relatives – all members of the sect – gathered outside the centre where they were being held to call for their return.
Some sect members then forced open the gate and tried to abduct the children and adolescents sheltered there, the Attorney General’s Office said.
But the children were intercepted by the authorities and put into a white minibus, local media reported.
With police help, the centre “managed to locate and protect everyone again”, the Attorney General’s Office added.
Officials had previously tried to check on the children’s wellbeing, but were prevented from entering the farm by sect members.
Authorities estimate that the community is made up of about 50 families residing in Guatemala, the US, Canada and other countries.
The Jewish Community of Guatemala has issued a statement disowning the sect, describing it as foreign to its own organisation.
It expressed support for the Guatemalan authorities in carrying out necessary investigations “to protect the lives and integrity of minors and other vulnerable groups that may be at risk”.