The January 2026 state of siege
- Operational and cargo security
- Cargo theft, extortion and private security
- Audited
On 17 Jan 2026 there were simultaneous riots in three prisons (Renovación I in Escuintla, Fraijanes II and the zone 18 remand center), attributed by Mingob to Barrio 18, with hostages taken (43 according to AP; 46 according to El Imparcial/CNN) and armed attacks on police (7 dead in the first reports; 10 according to AP and Democracy Now as of 20 Jan). President Arévalo decreed a state of siege across the whole national territory for 30 days — Governmental Decree 1-2026, announced on 18 Jan 2026, published in the official gazette (Diario de Centro América) on 19 Jan 2026 and ratified by Congress — with army deployment and the suspension of classes; the US Embassy issued an alert with a temporary shelter-in-place for its personnel. The final casualty count, the text of the decree and the exact end date (AGN: 17 Feb; other outlets: 16 Feb) remain to be verified. Subsequent normalization: in June 2026, 265 homicides were recorded (8.83 a day), an annualized rate of 16.3.
The research is written in English; quoted figures, source names and the titles of legal instruments stay in the language their source published them in.
Figures
- State of siege
- 30 days, the whole country; Government Decree 1-2026 published 19 Jan 2026
- Police killed / hostages
- 7–10 / 43–46 (varies by outlet)
- Homicides, June 2026
- 265 (8.83/day); annualized rate 16.3
Caveat
Sources
Related records
This layer is research: read from public sources by the archive's own team, every claim cited with the date it was consulted, and audited where it is marked so. It has not entered the verified store — no figure here was fetched back from its source or stamped with a retrieval time — so it wears no red provenance numeral and never mixes with the verified figures.