Save the Children Says Its Guatemala Offices Were Searched Over Abuse Claims

Guatemalan authorities searched the offices of Save the Children, the planetary foundation said connected Thursday, successful an enquiry into claims of kid maltreatment that was wide viewed arsenic a governmental onslaught successful a state with a past of targeting nonprofit groups and quality rights organizations.

Guatemala’s Public Ministry said successful a statement connected Thursday that it had searched the office of an enactment arsenic “part of an ongoing transnational investigation” into imaginable abuses against Guatemalan children. The ministry did not sanction the organization.

Save the Children, which has operated successful Guatemala since 1976, said its bureau had been searched. It denied the claims and said it had not been antecedently notified of an investigation.

Rafael Curruchiche, who leads the peculiar prosecutor’s bureau against impunity, said successful a video published connected societal media that the hunt had progressive the “registration and seizure of evidence” successful coordination with the nationalist police.

Mr. Curruchiche, whom the United States placed connected a list of corrupt officials for obstructing corruption inquiries and democracy, said that the hunt followed a ailment filed with the Public Ministry.

Guatemala has had a grounds of suppressing anticorruption and quality rights work. In 2021, a instrumentality that gave the authorities wide powers to dissolve nongovernmental organizations took effect aft lawmakers argued that groups receiving overseas backing violated Guatemala’s sovereignty. Charities person said that the legislation suppressed the state of assembly and expression.